CORN SAWFLY. 
27 
straw falls; but in the latter case it bends down at a sharp angle above 
one of the lowest knots; in the former (that is, in the case of injury 
from Corn Sawfly) the mischief is done by the corn stem being cut 
through about ground-level by the maggot which lies inside the stem; 
consequently the stem does not bend, but breaks clean off at the 
cut part. 
Kegarding this attack. Col. C. Eussell wrote me, on the 20th of 
July from Stubbers, near Komford, Essex, regarding what turned out 
to be attack of Cephus pygmceiis :— 
“ I examined a lot of wheat-stalks like those I sent you. In two I 
found specimens of a very small insect; one inside the straw when I 
had opened and examined to the joint below, the other came out 
where the straw was cut in two on removing the sheath. They were 
long and narrow, and had a glistening appearance.” 
On Aug. 12th Col. Eussell forwarded two more specimens, which 
agreed with description of Corn Sawfly respectively in larval condition 
\ 
and in cocoon. The maggot was legless, with yellowish head and 
brown jaws. Col. Eussell mentioned he had searched the wheat 
that morning and found “two larvae of the kind which cuts the 
straw in two close to the ground. They were both below their cut. 
Though cutting the straw close down into the ground, I cut one 
larva in two. The other larva is complete : as it is in a fine 
silk envelope, I suppose that it has ceased feeding, and is about to 
change.” 
Eelatively to distinctions observable between different methods of 
injury to straw, Col. Eussell remarked:—“ The sort which I now 
send cannot be distinguished from other fallen stems, except by 
pulling gently or feeling along with the finger-nail to the place where 
it has fallen. This is so close to the ground that when the straw 
comes away the stump is so close to the ground that it is apt to be lost 
sight of, and difficult to find again among the other stalks ; and this 
is where the insect lies. It is therefore not easy to get the insect, 
especially as for one straw cut down by it perhaps fifty have fallen 
from other causes, as wind or weakness.” 
A field of wheat at North Hall, Basingstoke, was reported by Mr. 
H. Purefoy Fitzgerald as being very badly infested by maggots, which 
were within the stems. The specimen sent accompanying proved to 
be the maggot of the Corn Sawfly; and on Aug. 25th Mr. Fitzgerald 
forwarded some wheat stems which showed on splitting up the straw 
where the maggot had worked and fed within. 
The larva or maggot of the Corn Sawfly is of the shape figured at 
p. 26, of a yellowish white, with a horny rust-coloured head, and, 
contrary to the general condition of sawfly maggots, it is without feet, 
but at the tip of the tail there is a sort of tube-like appendage, or 
