166 The Queensland Natuealist. Vol. I. 
unrolled. As the material was regarded as being damaged, 
a question arose as to whether the insects had occasioned 
this injury whilst it was in the indent merchant’s hands, 
or had established relations with the cloth prior to its arrival 
here, or in other words, were denizens of Australia or not. 
The reply submitted, whilst meeting this inquiry, 
explains the peculiar circumstances attending the dis- 
covery. It is understood both specimens were alive when 
discovered. 
The insects in question are the male and female of a 
large Saw Fly — Sirex gigas, Linne, popularly spoken of 
as the Giant Saw Fly (Fr. Le sirex geant : Germ. Kiesen- 
Holzwespen). The Giant Saw Fly is a native of Europe, 
and is not known to occur in Australia. 
That the damage to the serge has actually been 
effected by it is shown by the fact that in the alimentary 
canal of one of the insects minute fragments of dyed wool 
occurred in enormous numbers. 
The insect is naturally a borer of standing trees, 
coniferous ones (Pines) especially, living within their 
wood as a grub, and emerging from it by cutting its way 
out when adult, the latter operation being effected by power- 
ful jaws or mandibles. 
The unusual habit of damaging serge now brought 
under notice may be thus accounted for ; — When the wood 
around which the textile was wound was first used, it 
harboured already within it the grubs or larvae of the 
Sirex that had previously attacked it — possibly when 
forming part of a living tree — by depositing eggs by means 
of a saw-like ovipositor within its substance. Under 
ordinary circumstances the fully developed or winged insects 
would gnaAV their way out during the European summer 
(say June), after an interval of about a year had elapsed 
since the eggs were deposited. But should the wood 
meanwhile become dry, the issue of the saw flies might be 
deferred for a sufficient time to admit of their being trans- 
ported therewith — in this case the wood forming the 
object around which the cloth was wound — to some over- 
sea destination. No culpability necessarily would attach 
to a party using the wood for the purposes alluded to, 
since the insects might occur within its substance with 
little or no indication of this being the case. In issuing 
from the wood, the scene of their grub-life, the saw flies 
would encounter no difficulty in biting through the layers 
of a roll of cloth, in fact, sheet-lead would not resist such 
action on their part. 
It may be of interest to remark that as long ago as 
1853, a French entomologist, Mons. M. H. Lucas, read 
a paper before the Societe Entomologique ” of France 
{Bulletin de Soc, Ent. Fr. 1853, p. 53), on just such an 
