IIYMENOPTEItA. 
121 
I hastened to shore, and as quickly as I could made my 
way to the West of the hills, when I found myself freed 
from their annoyance. Every blade of grass, every rush 
and twig was thickly studded with the flies, and was 
bending with their accumulated numbers. The majority 
of the insects I observed were females.”* 
The larvm of the Gooseberry Saw-fly are said to 
undergo their transformations in society, one attaching 
the end of its cocoon to the end of the next. The 
whole family of Tenthredin^e is eminently destructive ; 
the larvae have the habit of rolling themselves up 
spirally when disturbed. Before passing into the pupa 
state the creatures form for themselves a silk-lined cell 
in the ground, or they burrow into the pith of plants* 
or attach a long oblong cocoon to the surface of a 
thorn branch. 
As an instance of the Boring Terebrants I select the 
large hornet-like insects, not very uncommon in Eng¬ 
land, though it is believed not breeding here. This is 
the Fir-wood-borer (Sirex gigas ), of which a figure of 
the natural size will be found on Plate V., Fig. 9. The 
formidable appearance of this insect—the female of 
which has a long ovipositor, supposed by the uninitiated 
to be a sting—its great size and conspicuous colouring, 
have rendered it an object of alarm. I once received a 
specimen from an acquaintance, who assured me that a 
number of these insects attacked and stung his carriage 
horses as he was driving out, and wished to know what 
the horse-stinger could be. A few of these large insects 
approaching horses with a loud humming, would very 
* Staveley’s Brit. Insects, p. 1G3. 
