SLUGWORMS. 
23 
only as, a garden crop probably is well worth while ; but where the 
plant is a field crop in market-gardening districts, and the Flies 
consequently abound through the neighbourhood, it is quite another 
consideration. 
A rapid healthy growth seems the main preventive of injury known 
at present, and any information as to dressings or sprinklings of 
prepared ashes on the leafage in the dew of the morning would be 
very serviceable. 
CHERRY. 
Slugworms ; Larvae of Cherry and Pear Sawfly. Tenthredo 
(Selandria) cerasi, Curtis. 
Tenthredo cerasi. 
a, Slugworm, mag.; b, cocoon. Sawfly, magnified; lines showing nat. size. 
The so-called “ Slugworms ” are often not recognised at first sight 
as caterpillars on account of the very peculiar appearance from which 
they take their name. They are really the caterpillars of the Cherry 
and Pear Sawfly, and do much damage to the leafage of several trees 
(amongst fruit trees, especially to that of Cherry, Plum, and Pear) by 
eating away all excepting some remains of the veins and skm of the 
under side of the leaf. 
The Sawflies are of the common Sawfly shape, but the females 
are blackish, and the wings sometimes also blackish. They appear 
about July, and lay their eggs on the upper surface of the leaves. 
The caterpillars, which soon hateh from the eggs, are at first of the 
peculiar shape figured, much the largest near the head, and, after just 
their first appearance from the egg to their last change, of a black or 
bottle-green colour, and covered with a coat of slime or shiny moisture, 
which gives them much the appearance of a black slug, or, as it has 
been remarked, a lump of wet dirt let fall by a bird. 
When full-grown they moult off their black slimy skins, and 
appear as buff or yellowish caterpillars, free from slime, and trans¬ 
versely wrinkled. The caterpillars go down into the ground, like those 
