GOOSEBERRY AND CURRANT SAWFLY. 
43 
When birds, such as Sea Gulls, &c., come temporarily in great 
flocks on ploughed land, or pasture, or on trees, they should on no 
account be molested ; they have come to clear off special attack, and 
when their work is done they will go. But this is a very different 
matter to keeping up a kind of poultry-yard of small birds which day 
by day have got to be fed. 
GOOSEBERRY. 
Gooseberry and Currant Sawfly. Nematus Ribesii, Curtis. 
Sawfly caterpillar ; cocoon, mag. Sawfly, mag. ; line showing nat. length. 
The first of the following observations notes attack of Gooseberry 
caterpillars, and the difficulty of getting rid of the creatures when 
present; the others refer for the most part to the benefit of dressing 
with lime or gas-lime, or stirring or clearing away the surface-soil 
beneath. By these means (as shown in previous Reports) the cater¬ 
pillars, which spend the winter in cocoons a little below the surface 
under the Gooseberry bushes, are killed or carried away, and thus the 
first batch of Sawflies, which would have developed from them in the 
spring and started a new attack, are got rid of. 
Mr. Ellis Lord, writing from Netlierton, near Heywood, Lancashire, 
mentions :—“ Last year I was so troubled with them on my Gooseberry 
bushes as to destroy the crop; and, with the promise just now of 
plenty of fruit, these pests have made their appearance. 
“We have syringed the bushes with plenty of water,—with water 
aud petroleum oil even,—rinsing them about an hour after with plain 
water, and are trying soot under the trees. Enclosed is a specimen, 
taken this evening, evidently as vigorous as ever.” 
