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NOTES OF OBSERVATIONS 
have stripped the whole tree. A second brood of the Gooseberry 
caterpillar, still more numerous and injurious than the first, is 
mentioned as appearing on July 20tli. The larvae of the Gooseberry 
Sawfly are also mentioned as extremely abundant, and doing much 
damage to the foliage of the bushes at New Malden, Surrey. At 
Ashford, Kent, a few were observable in almost every garden, but 
little damage was done. Mr. Edward Parfitt mentions some gardens 
near Exeter as being much injured by this Sawfly. Mr. D’Urban 
notes the first observation of the larvae on May 18tli, then just 
hatching from the eggs on the leaves of a Ked Currant against a 
wall; these leaves were picked off as fast as the young broods 
appeared, but a few grubs left were fully grown in about three weeks. 
They were not much noticed again till September, when the larvae 
were so numerous as to strip every bush of Eed Currant, and some of 
the Gooseberry bushes in the gardens in the neighbourhood, continuing 
to feed until after the frosts in the middle of October. Mr. D. Sym 
Scott, writing from Ballinacourte, Tipperary, mentions that only on 
one former occasion has he observed caterpillars of Gooseberry Sawflies 
as destructive to the Gooseberry and Currant bushes. These he first 
noticed on May 17th; and though the operation of hand-picking was 
commenced on the following morning they increased in numbers with 
extraordinary rapidity, extending in a remarkably short time over the 
whole garden. The weather was generally moist, and on some days 
it rained heavily. This insect is very troublesome, as if its ravages 
are not checked tire productiveness of the bushes is injured for more 
than the season of attack. The habit of the Saw T fly larva is to go 
down into the ground when full fed and there spin a cocoon, in which 
it undergoes its changes, coming up in summer as the perfect Sawfly 
in about three weeks ; but in the case of the autumnal larvae, remaining 
unchanged and curled up in the cocoons till spring, when they develop 
and come up from the ground when the Gooseberries and Currants are 
coming into leaf. For this stage skimming off the surface of the ground 
and burning it, with the contained cocoons, or the less complete 
remedy of digging, liming, sooting, or any other treatment of the 
ground under the bushes that would remove or kill the larvae, would 
be of great use ; but also for this and similar cases (though this is only 
a suggestion on my part) I think that Mr. Thomas’s (of Ridgeovean) 
treatment for Otiorhynclius of placing tarred boards under the bushes, 
and causing the pests to fall on the wet tar (be they beetles or 
caterpillars), might be well applied. If the larvae did not fall to a 
shake they almost certainly would to a good syringing with w'ater as 
hot as the trees would bear, and the trouble and expense of the 
