I907-] 



Apple Sawfly. 



483 



with the veins at the base dark, as is also a spot about the 

 middle part of the edge of each fore-wing. 



The Sawfly measures in length one-quarter of an inch, and 

 in spread of wings five-eighths of an inch. The caterpillar is 

 white or cream-coloured ; when first hatched it has a black 

 head and a black plate at the tail end , later the head is red- 

 brown and the tail plate greyish. The legs are 20 in number. 

 The caterpillar, when full-grown, measures half an inch in 

 length. 



Life History. — The adult Sawflies begin to issue from their 

 cocoons from about the middle of May onwards. Those 

 issuing early may be found and in numbers amongst the apple 

 blossom ; the blossom may have fallen and the young apples 



FEMALE SAWFLY AND CATERPILLAR (MAGNIFIED), AFTER WESTWOOD. INJURED 

 APPLE AND CATERPILLARS (NATURAL SIZE), FROM MISS ORMEROD's " HAND- 

 BOOK OF ORCHARD INSECTS." 



may have made a certain amount of growth before the later 

 issuing adults have appeared. 



The female — as described by one of Miss Ormerod's corre- 

 spondents — inserts her eggs below the calyx in the position of 

 the ovary and developing fruit ; the caterpillar, on hatching, 

 feeds on the young fruit and may pass from one apple to another. 

 As a result, badly infested apples " having reached the size of a 

 walnut," fall away. In bad attacks the ground may be strewn 

 with these. The full-grown caterpillars fall with the spoilt 

 apples or may drop from the fruit, passing, in June and July, 

 into the soil, where, some inches below the surface, they spin 

 their cocoons. In the cocoons the caterpillar lies sheltered 

 over the winter. In the late spring or early summer the 

 caterpillars pupate and the adults come away. 



2 H 2 



