Packard.] 
INSECTS OF THE GARDEN. 
43 
beyond its natural limits when introduced into a new coun¬ 
try, where its native insect para^tes and bird enemies (if 
such there be) cannot reduce its numbers. 
It was imported from Europe'into nurseries at Rochester, 
New York, during the year 1860. It seems since that time 
to have spread westward and eastward, arriving in eastern 
Massachusetts about 1865, and since then has been very 
destructive in gardens in New England, including the east¬ 
ern part of Maine. 
The parent of this worm is a saw fly, so named from bear¬ 
ing a saw-like sting, or ovipositor, with which it pierces the 
leaves or stalks of plants, cutting a gash, in which it 
deposits an egg, the egg passing out from the ovary through 
the oviduct, and thence through the blades of the ovipositor 
into the wound made in the plant. While most of the mem¬ 
bers of this family cut a gash in the leaf, into which an egg 
is pushed, a few, as in the present insect, simply place them 
on the under surface of the leaf, as seen in Fig. 34. The fly 
has four wings, and belongs to the group of insects (Hymen- 
optera) that comprises the bee, wasp and ichneumon fly. 
The following account of its habits is taken from the 
writer’s “ Guide to the Study of Insects : ” “There are about 
fifty species of Nematus in this country, of which the most 
injurious one, the gooseberry saw fly, has been brought from 
Europe. Professor Winchell, who has studied this insect in 
Ann Arbor, Mich., where it has been very destructive, ob¬ 
served the female on the 16th of June, while depositing her 
cylindrical, whitish and transparent eggs in regular rows 
along the under side of the veins of the leaves, at the rate 
of about one in forty-five seconds. The embryo escapes 
from the egg in four days. It feeds, moults and burrows 
into the ground within a period of eight days. It remains 
thirteen days in the ground, being most of the time in the 
pupa state, while the fly lives nine days. The first brood 
of worms appeared May 21st; the second brood June 25th.” 
11 
