PEAR AND CIlERItY SAWFLY ; " SLUGWORM." -81 



boughs with a mixture of sulphur, paraffin, soot, and gishurstine ; but 

 it has done no good. Can you suggest any way to stop the attack, 

 both now, and in the future ?" 



In reply I mentioned the benefit of use of caustic dressings (noted 

 at p. 82), applied twice, or possibly three times, at short intervals, and 

 on June 19th, Mr. Cresswell Ward wrote further regarding effect of 

 the application on the Sawfly larvae : — " My gardener has used the 

 quick-lime, and it is killing them rapidly ; and your other instructions 

 will of course be carried out, and another year I have no doubt the 

 trees will bear fruit." ..." The heat is very intense ; we all hope 

 for rain." 



Mr. Ward's note of the heat and drought is of special interest in 

 connection with the information recorded by Mr. P. Cameron {loc. cit., 

 p. 80) of damage being especially great from these larvae " during very 

 dry seasons." 



In this case the active stage of the attack to some of the leaves sent 

 me was only just beginning, the upper surface of the leaf not being as 

 yet stripped of the cuticle in patches, but dotted with little irregularly 

 circular patches, some less than half a line in diameter. 



The places of egg deposit were very observable. These were 

 noticeable on the upper side of the leaf as little spots roundish in 

 shape, and whitish in colour (from the upper coat of skin being dead), 

 slightly raised in the middle, and of a somewhat transparent tint just 

 over the contained egg, which was a soft mass, compressible, thick, 

 and somewhat circular in outline. 



Most of the larvae had hatched out, leaving only the white skin 

 cracked where the maggot had effected its escape, but two eggs still 

 remained unhatched. One of these eggs contained the white Sawfly 

 larva curled on itself within, and sufficiently developed to be of char- 

 acteristic shape, that is, with the large segments behind the head, and 

 the hinder portion of the maggot with the segments much narrower. 

 In the other egg the contents were not yet sufficiently developed to be 

 defined in shape. I did not see any larvae in the act of coming out of 

 the egg, but the smallest of them were as a general thing of a 

 yellowish colour. 



The little white blisters, or patches, of white dead skin covering 

 the eggs were about one-sixteenth of an inch across, and one leaf, 

 where I counted them, over thirty in number ; on another there were 

 about twenty-five ; all these (with possibly one exception) showing on 

 the upper surface of the leaf. 



The latest observation sent me of this Pear leaf pest, was sent on 

 the 28th of August, from Etchowe, Lansdown Eoad, Cheltenham, by 

 Mr. Edward Cornford, and is of special interest as showing the long 

 continuance of the attack. 



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