LIFE UPON A ROSE BUSH. 
59 
reached Milton, his former place of residence, and did not 
appear there till six or seven years later, but gradually it 
has spread in all directions. 
They became so injurious to shrubs in and around Bos¬ 
ton that in the summer of 1840 the Massachusetts Horti¬ 
cultural Society offered a premium of one hundred dollars 
for the best mode of destroying this pest. Various experi¬ 
ments have been tried by syringing the bushes twice a week 
with water and tobacco juice, an emulsion of kerosene, or 
a strong solution of whale-oil soap, also dusting the bushes 
with lime when wet; but perhaps the safest and most effi¬ 
cacious of these is the treatment with whale-oil soap. One 
successful rose-grower in this vicinity strongly recommends 
its use ; he does not claim it will entirely exterminate, but 
he says, “ They don’t like it.” 
But to return to the insect as it first made its appearance 
in our garden. It had just come forth from the cells in the 
earth, in which it had passed the pupa stage, and was 
ready for the pairing season and the deposition of the egg, 
which is done in a curious manner. Like others of the 
Tenthredinidse, the abdomen of the female is provided 
with a pair of saws, and when about to lay the eggs she 
turns a little to one side, unsheathes the saws, pierces the 
skin of the leaf obliquely, and thrusts an egg into each in¬ 
cision thus made. 
In a few days the young, sluggish caterpillars appear 
and begin their ravages upon the leaves, eating away the 
upper surface in large patches, and leaving nothing but the 
veins, which turn brown, and finally the whole leaf withers 
and drops off. The caterpillars eat by night, and spend 
the day resting beneath the leaf. They are yellowish 
green, soft and transparent like jelly, when they first ap¬ 
pear, but after moulting several times they lose their semi- 
