169 
at Alameda, Cal., working in grass, and is referred to in INSECT LIFE, 
Vol. 10, p. 71. These are the only published records of Saw-flies affect- 
ing small grains or grasses in this country. 
The European Corn Saw-fly is, properly speaking, not a Saw-fly, but 
may be classed with the family Uroceride, or Horn-tails, the larvee of 
which are wood-borers. The larva of Cephus resembles them in this 
habit in that it does not feed exteriorly on the grain, but burrows in 
the stalk. The genus Cephus with allied genera has also been sepa- 
rated as a distinct family, Cephide, connecting the Tenthredinide with 
the Uroceride. 
The Saw-fly larvee, which attack cereals and grasses, belong mostly 
to the genus Dolerus, the exceptions being the Cephus spp. just men- 
tioned, and Nematus marylandicus Norton. 
DOLERUS SPP. 
The Saw-flies of the genus Dolerus are comparatively large, robust 
insects, of a dull black or bluish color, varied with yellow or reddish, and 
are represented in the United States by some seventeen species, of 
which the early stages of none have been recorded. They are among 
the earliest of the Saw-flies to appear in the spring, and are frequently 
found about willows feeding on the pollen of the catkins. They are 
also, and very commonly, taken on grass, particularly in moist and 
swampy localities. 
In Europe there are nearly 60 described species, but here again the 
habits of but few of them are known, and the larve, on the authority 
of André, have been carefully described only in the case of a single 
species—D. hematodes Schk. This is the more remarkable because 
the species of this genus are abundant and widely distributed. The 
adults of a number of European species, however, have been reared 
from the larve, and of these larve brief descriptions have been made 
and the food-habits recorded. ‘These records show that the larve of 
this genus feed on grasses (festuca, ete.,) or on Juncus and certain 
other low monocotyledonous plants. 
‘Cameron gives the food-habits of the following species: * 
D. fulviventris on Hquisetum ? 
D. palustris on Equisetum palustre. 
D. gonagra on meadow grass, particularly Festuca pratensis. 
D. hematodes on Juncus sp. 
D. niger on Festuca? 
The egg of a Dolerus has never been described or seen. The larve 
of the Dolerus spp. are quite uniform in color and general characteris- 
tics, and do not differ essentially from the larvee of other Tenthredinine. 
awe have 22 legs, are cylindrical, and generally of a uniform grayish ° 
or slaty color dorsally a laterally, but nearly white ventrally and 
subventrally. 
*A Monograph of the British Phytophagous Hymenoptera, Vol. I. 
