134 
Observations on the various Insects 
mouth in tlie male is bright yellow, including the powerful jaws,* 
on the clypeus is a spot of the same colour, and the interior mar- 
gin of the eyes is likewise yellow; the thorax is oval, and not 
broader than the head ; the abdomen is sessile or attached by its 
entire base, rather long, slender, and slightly compressed ; at the 
base is a yellow membranous spot, there are yellow spots on each 
side of the first and second segments, and a dot on the back of 
the latter, the third and fifth segments have broad yellow mar- 
gins, the sixth has a narrow one, forming spots on the sides and 
back, and the apex is yellow ; the four wings are transparent and 
iridescent, there are two marginal and four submarginal cells in 
the superior, the costa and stigma are yellowish brown, and all 
the nervures are brown and slender; the legs are bright yellow, 
including the coxae and trochanters, but they as well as the thighs 
have black stripes on the outside ; the hinder tibiae have a pair of 
spurs on the inside below the middle and also at the apex, they 
are brown on the outside, as well as the tarsi, which are five- 
jointed ; the claws are bifid at their tips, with little pulvilli be- 
tween them. The female is darker, the palpi and sides of the jaws 
only are yellow ; the abdomen is rather stouter and shorter, the 
yellow spots on the two basal joints are either very minute or ab- 
sent, and the margin of the sixth is less apparent, and the bands 
are more of a sulphiir colour ; the apex is sloped off obliquely, and 
encloses a black ovipositor, which is but slightly exposed ; the 
wings are rather smoky ; the legs are ochreous, the coxae, tro- 
chanters, and thighs black, excepting the apex of the latter above; 
the hinder tibiae are brown outside, and the four posterior tarsi are 
of the same colour: fig. 5, the cross lines showing the natural size. 
This saw-fly is very abundant, annually, on flo.vers in corn-fields 
in Jiane, also on grass in woods ; and I remember finding vast 
numbers of the females upon white umbellate flowers growing by 
the roadsides near Dover, the beginningr of July, but I could not 
detect one male. 
'1 he larva is not less interesting, in a scientific point of view, than 
the imago; for, being an apode — viz., destitute of feel — it is unlike 
those of the saw-flies, which, it will be remembered, have fre- 
quently a great number of legs, and resemble caterpillars more 
than maggots.f The following is M. Herpin's description of ilie 
Larva of Cephus pygmaus : it is six lines long, a little thickened 
anteriorly, nearly cylindrical, of a yellowish milky white, and 
tolerably fleshy : its head is rounded, corneous, and ferruginous : 
there is a minute four-jointed antenna on each side, below which 
is a little round eye: the three thoracic segments have no feet, 
• Vide Curtis's Brit. Ent., pi. 301. 
t fide the caterpillars of the turnip saw-fly in the Rojal Agr. Journ., 
vol. ii. pi. B, fig. 2. 
