SOME ENEMIES OF THE TREES in 



saw-fly grub and assumes all proprietary rights 

 and control. Again, instead of a beetle, it may 

 be a poor relation, the beggar saw-fly, which in- 

 trudes. The grub hatched from her egg is a 

 greedy little wrangler that takes the best of 

 everything and finally starves his host to death. 

 But, once more, it does not matter! The 

 mother saw-fly, a few days before her death, 

 made some three hundred slits in as many hap- 

 less willow leaves, with the odd little saws 

 which worked back and forth from a socket on 

 the under side of her abdomen; if a pair of 

 saw-flies grows up from the eggs so hidden, the 

 race of saw-flies will never die out. The "wil- 

 low apple" falls with the leaves, and its inhab- 

 itant changes into a pupa. In the spring, when 

 the wiUow buds are loosening their leathery 

 poke bonnets, the young saw-fly emerges and 

 stretches its four rainbow-colored wings in a 

 mad revel of flight, that is as brief as it is 

 gay; for ere the leaves are full-blown its life- 

 cycle is ended. "Not how long, but how 

 merrily," seems to be their family motto. 



Pine cones are often found growing on pussy 

 willow bushes. At least that is what we take 

 the little green scaly knobs for at first glance. 

 In reality they are pine cone galls — the nursery 

 of a midge-like fly called a gall-gnat, which vis- 



