60 
CORN. 
I received showed it to be at least scattered over a wide area. Note were 
sent with specimens accompanying, showing it to be present in one or 
more localities in Essex; near Long Melford, Suffolk; in Cambs., 
Beds., Hunts, Lincolnshire, and Northamptonshire; also in Berks, 
Oxfordshire, near Reading, and in Hampshire ; but I had no observa¬ 
tions sent of it being noticed in the North of England, or in Scotland. 
It will be observed that these localities correspond very much with 
those of Chlorops and with the districts where the Hessian Fly was most 
prevalent in England, but whether this circumstance arises from the 
attack chiefly existing in this area, or from attention being more drawn 
to the subject of corn-stalk pests in these localities, I am unable to say. 
The method of life of the Sawfly grub is to feed within the corn- 
stem, clearing the inside of the knots in its passage, and about 
harvest-time it comes down to ground level, where it gnaws a ring so 
neatly and cleanly round inside the stem that the straw readily falls 
with its own weight, or from slight pressure of the wind, the severed 
stalk showing almost as smooth a fracture as if it had been separated by 
a knife. As, both in this case and in bad injury from Hessian Fly, the 
straw falls, the two attacks are very liable to be confused in mere 
casual examination; but when looked at with care it will be readily 
seen that in this Sawfly attack the straw is cut through (fairly 
separated) at ground level, and in Hessian Fly injury the stalk is not 
cut through, but elbows sharply down commonly at the second joint 
from the ground, and consequently on the weaknesses caused by the 
maggots sucking outside the stem at the spot where they turn to the flat 
flax-seed-like chrysalids. 
The Corn Sawfly has long been known in this country as a crop- 
pest, and also on the Continent of Europe, but, as far as I have been 
able to learn by investigation or enquiry, it is not a crop-pest of 
America ; and as I have pointed out elsewhere, this is not one of 
the attacks which can be conveyed in grain, chaff, or straw. The 
maggot itself cuts the corn-stalk below where the cutters of the reaper 
separate the stems and it remains, not in the upper part, which is 
carried away, but down in the stump which remains in the ground. 
There it spins itself a thin cocoon for its winter protection, and there 
it remains until the early summer of the following year, when the 
four-winged black-and-yellow fly (see fig. p. 59) comes out of the 
chrysalis to which the maggot had turned in the straw. 
As the maggot remains down the stump left in the ground, it is 
not liable to be removed in the reaped straw, and any method which 
may be preferred of destroying the infested stubble will get rid of 
danger of recurrence of attack from that of the preceding year. 
Ploughing would not do this securely unless the stubble was 
thoroughly well buried down; if only partly buried the maggots 
