120 
IIYMEX OPTER A 
taken for that of some Lepidopterous insect, for it lias- 
six true legs, a number of abdominal or false legs, and 
one pair at the tail; but it can be readily distinguished. 
A Lepidopterous larva has never more than four pairs 
of abdominal legs ; the Saw-fly larva may have five or 
six pairs or more. The number of these abdominal 
legs on the larva of the Gooseberry Saw-fly is six pairs. 
The grub is of a dark green—the colour of the goose¬ 
berry leaf—spotted with black, and beset with short 
hairs ; the head is deep black, and so are the true legs 
towards the head and tail end the colour is of a 
yellowish tint. Hand picking is the best remedy. The 
drawing of the insect on Plate V., Fig. 7, is the Turnip 
Saw-fly (Athalia Spinarum) considerably magnified 
the larvae, called “niggers” in some counties, feed on the 
leaves of the turnip, which they reduce to mere skeletons 
of fibres. These flies come over from the north of Europe, 
according to Curtis, but are probably bred in small 
numbers annually in this country. Mr. F. Smith, the 
eminent entomologist of the British Museum, once 
encountered a multitudinous host of these Saw-flies on 
the sand hills near Deal, towards the end of August. 
“I pursued my way,” he says, “penetrating into the 
cloud of insects, which, when observed from a position 
in which I faced the sun, assumed a tint approaching 
vermilion red. The insect-clouds were borne seaward 
by a gentle south land breeze. I plunged into the 
water, and hoped by swimming from the shore to free 
myself from their annoyance, but finding that at a 
distance of not less than three hundred yards the 
surface of the sea was thickly covered with them, and 
as far as I could see that they floated in equal numbers* 
