With this instrument the female sawfly cuts a slit in the stem or leaf of a plant, into which she introduces her egg.
"On the Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects"
Sir John Lubbock
There must have been a warning given once: No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly, To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes Into this mounded sward and rumple it; All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil.
"Georgian Poetry 1920-22"
Various