THE GRUB DESCRFBED. 
61 
and paper to describe it here ; yet some of your readers 
may be glad of a description, so here it is. There is a 
great difference between the grubs of saw-flies — the goose- 
berry grub is that of a saw-fly — and the caterpillars of 
moths, which your thorough-paced entomologists don't 
seem to have noticed. The caterpillars of moths and but- 
terflies have six legs, and ten, six, or four holders, two of 
which are quite at the end of the body, and are very 
powerful prehensile organs, excepting — and the exception 
establishes the rule — in the caterpillars of puss-moths and 
their allies, in which the liinder extremity is without these 
organs, and often elevated in a most remarkable manner. 
In all the grubs of saw-flies that I liave seen, the tail or 
last segment of the body is either without holders, or the 
grub does not use them, but just curls its tail on one side 
and uses it after the fashion of a finger, to steady its hold 
on the leaf, or else sticks it up in the air, and even then 
the extreme end is curled round, though holding nothing. 
The legs are longer than those of real caterpillars, and 
have more joints. The gooseberry-grub has six legs, and 
in this all insects that have any legs at all seem to agree, 
and twelve holders, besides the curled tail : it always 
stands on the edge of the leaf, generally on the part where 
it has just been eating : the fore legs are held away from 
the leaf, and move with each movement of the head in 
gnawing, as the grub takes mouthful after mouthful. It 
is amusing to watch one of these fellows feeding ; he 
stretches his mouth to the farthest point he can possibly 
reach, and then takes mouthfuls by a series of jerks, till he 
has brought liis mouth nearly in contact with his middle 
pair of legs, he then moves it slowly back again, and 
seems to lick or plane the fresh-gnawed edge, till he gets 
