Tenthbedinid^ INSECTS. SikiciDjE. 177 
Mr. Lewis in Tasmania, is interesting, more especially as 
maternal solicitude is rare of necessity in insects, which 
perish, generally, before their young can be hatched. 
Fig. 61. 
In a letter to the secretary of the Entomological Society, 
he showed that the female Perga* deposited her 
eggs “ in a longitudinal incision between the two sur- 
faces of the leaves of one of the gum trees {Eucalyptus) 
adjoining the mid rib.” There are about eighty of these 
eggs; “on these the mother sits till the exclusion of the 
Fig. 52. 
larvse, which appear not to remain in the egg-state 
many days. They appear to keep very quiet during the 
day. The mother insect follows them, sitting with 
outstretched legs over her brood, preserving them from 
the heat of the sun, and protecting them from the 
attacks of parasites and other animals with admirable 
perseverance.” The leaves of the gooseberry are often 
much destroyed by the larvse of the small saw-fly, called 
Nematus Grossularice. 
* Perga Lewisii Westw. Trans. Ent. Soc. vol. i., p. 234; and 
Arc. Ent., pj. 7, fig. 1. 
VOL. II. 79 
The antennae in the genus Cimhex are club-shaped 
at the end, and the hind legs in the males are very 
much thickened in some of the species. The name 
was given by the ancients to certain insects which 
resembled bees and wasps, but did not produce honey. 
Several species are indigenous to this country. Dr. 
Harris describes the Cimhex of the elm, a common 
American species, the larva of which feeds on that tree. 
When full-grown, these larvae are from an inch to two 
inches in length ; they are thick and cylindrical, and 
have twenty-two legs, or a pair to every ring but the 
fourth. The caterpillars, when handled or disturbed, 
show their displeasure by spirting out a watery fluid 
from pores on their sides. When they have done 
feeding, the larva conceals itself under fallen leaves or 
other rubbish, and there makes an oval brown cocoon, 
which is as tough as parchment. In this cocoon, which 
is about an inch long, the cateiqiillar remains throughout 
the winter, and is not changed to a chrysalis till spring. 
The insect escapes by gnawing a circular piece off the 
end of the cocoon. 
The figure of a Cimbex here given (fig. 52) is copied 
from Eatzeburg — see fig. 52. 
Our figure — Plate 7, fig. 2 — is that of the female of 
an Australian Saw-fly, with beautiful antennse in the 
male {Pterygophorus cinctus). 
Family — SIRICIDjE {Tailed Wood-wasps). 
A family of insects, not very numerous in species, 
and often of considerable size. The males and females 
are, generally, very unlike each other. There are ten 
British species in the genera Xiphydria, Sirex, and 
Oryssus. 
TEEMEX COLUMBA {Canadian Wood-wasp), an 
abundant insect in Canada. Mr. D’Urban, in his very 
interesting papers* in the Zoologist ior July, 1860, thus 
remarks on it: — “Every one who has visited the neigh- 
bourhood of the beautiful city of Montreal, in the 
summer season, must have noticed the numerous dead 
trees, stretching their leafless branches to the sky ; and 
indeed, in many spots a very large proportion of the 
trees, especially the beautiful hickories {Carya iomen- 
tosa ?), have fallen victims to the ravages of the Tremex, 
aided by the larvse of a small beetle (a species of 
Scolytus) undermining the bark of those trees, which 
have been rendered sickly by the borings of that hand- 
some but destructive insect. 
SIEEX GIGAS. — The larvse are very destructive to 
wood; whole plantations of firs have been destroyed in 
this country by the borings of these insects. Kirby and 
Spence give instances of the fir wood having been cut 
down, and the wood employed as joists or planks for 
floors when it contained the young larvse of these 
insects. They live several years in this state, and 
emerge, sometimes, much to the surprise of the occupants. 
Ingpen met with an instance. 
Sirex cedrorum is a species from the Lebanon, a 
borer into the far-famed cedars, so much used in the 
building of the Temple at Jerusalem. 
The figure — Plate 7, fig. 1 — represents the Sirex 
gigas above alluded to. 
* Insects of New England, p. 410. 
