number live exposed on the foliage of plants, but others take up their abode in the interior of slender shoots and feed upon the immature pith; others lodge in the interior of fruits and cause them speedily to decay.
The first insect selected as an example of the family of saw-flies, is named
CIMBEX DECEM-MACULATA.
Plate XXX. Fig. 2.
Leach Zool. Mis. III. p. 106—Curtis' Brit. Ent. I. Pl. 41.
The genus cimbex possesses six-jointed antennæ, of which the second joint is much the longest, and the terminal one oblong and club-shaped. The two terminal joints of the maxillary palpi are small and ovate; the labial palpi scarcely longer than the labium; labrum small and oblong; mandibles large and acute, the inner side irregularly toothed; hinder thighs very thick in the males; the tibiæ terminated by a pair of obtuse spurs, and the tarsal joints produced into a spine beneath.
The larvæ of Cimbex have twenty-two feet; and some of them, when annoyed, are capable of squirting a greenish liquid from two lateral apertures. When about to enter the pupa state, they form an oblong hard case, which is usually attached to the tree or shrub on which they fed. We have seven or eight British species, of which the above is one of the rarest. The body is black, the abdomen tinged with violet, the third and seventh segments
