286 CONNECTICUT EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT, I907-I908. 



brown ocher in color. At this time only six or eight were seen 

 flying around each tree in the infested locality, but Mr. Barnes 

 informed me that they had been very numerous a few days 

 earlier. Upon examining the trees, numerous white eggs were 

 found on the under side of the peach leaves, and some of these 

 eggs were beginning to hatch. The number of eggs observed 

 at once suggested that the insect might prove to be quite a pest. 

 Material was collected to rear, but while the writer was absent 

 from the station in connection with other work, all specimens 

 died. The next visit was made to the orchard July 27th, when 

 all the larvae had disappeared. A number of trees had been 

 badly defoliated, and evidences of the work of the insect were 

 seen over a considerable area in the orchard. Observations 

 made on this insect during the past season are presented in the 

 following pages. 



Identity of the Pest. 



This insect promised to be interesting even before we saw it, 

 as there are comparatively few insects that feed upon peach 

 foliage. The specimens were sawflies, hymenppterous insects, 

 belonging to the family Tenthredinidae (a familiar example of 

 which is the common currant worm). They are called sawflies 

 because the ovipositor of the female consists of a pair of plates 

 with serrated edges, with which some of the species "saw" 

 into the tissues of plants, where they deposit their eggs. Speci- 

 mens were sent to Dr. A. D. MacGillivray of Cornell University, 

 a specialist in this group, who pronounced it a new species and 

 described the insect as Pamphilius persicum* 



Another sawfly, Selandria obsoletum Nort., has been reported 

 by Prof. H. A. Morgan,t as seriously defoliating peach and 

 plum trees in Louisiana, in an article giving a description of the 

 insect and its work. 



Injury to Trees. 



The peach sawfly feeds upon the foliage and the injury 

 depends of course upon the extent to which a tree is defoliated. 

 In 1906 many trees in one section of the orchard were quite 

 badly defoliated (see Plate VI, b.), and while surrounding trees 



* Canadian Entomologist, Vol. XXXIX, p. 308, 1907. 

 tLa. Expt. Station Bull. 48 Second Series, p. 142, 1897. 



