260 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Such are some of the reasons which would make one question 

 the accuracy of Adler's views, and I will now give the record of 

 the observations which would seem to controvert those views and 

 to comport most with those of Hartig, though showing yet a 

 third method. 



On April 20, 1894, my attention was called by Mr. Pergande 

 to several specimens of Callirhytis clavula Osten Sacken 

 ovipositing in the buds of Quercus prinus. This is a rather 

 large, winged agamic form, which Mr. Ashmead informs me he 

 has actually bred from the clavula gall. The same species also 

 oviposits in the buds of Quercus alba. The flies were sitting on 

 the buds with the head towards the tip of the bud, and were so 

 absorbed in their work that they scarcely moved or altered their 

 position, even when the twigs were allowed to sweep back with 

 some force. The ovipositor was deeply inserted within the 

 scale-like covering of the buds. On carefully removing the scaly 

 covering of a bud that had been pricked, quite a number of eggs 

 were found in clusters of three or four together, and a few singly, 

 inserted in the tender, new, embryo leaves. It was further found 

 that the eggs were inserted on both the upper and lower surfaces 

 of the leaf and almost entirely hidden by the silvery pubescence 

 of the newly formed leaf. They were attached by a short stout 

 pedicel or stem which, however, upon very careful examination, 

 was found to extend for a great length (six or seven times the 

 length of the exposed egg-body) like a fine thread into the sub 

 stance of the leaf. The distal or anterior end of the egg-stalk 

 was also somewhat enlarged, looking like a bit of shrivelled skin. 

 The exposed portion of the egg or egg-body was white, glistening, 

 elongate-ovoid or bean-shaped in form and about .2 mm. in 

 length. Two days later, or on the 22d, additional flies were 

 observed ovipositing and the buds were marked. On the 27th 



reason to believe, nevertheless, that it is absolutely incorrect. Winnertz, 

 Osten Sacken, and other writers have generalized in this matter from what 

 may be considered the typical Cecidomyidous ovipositor, which is a cylin 

 drical tube, being but a prolongation of the tip of the abdomen. The 

 truth of the matter is, however, that many of the gall-making species have 

 this tip of the abdomen almost as much specialized as in Pronuba among 

 Lepidoptera, ending in a delicate, sharp lance, admirably fitted for pierc 

 ing the soft tissues of tender vegetation, as I stated in the article on galls 

 in Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia (1876), which Lichtenstein, by a cu 

 rious error, referred to, in the Introduction to his translation of Adler, as 

 Le Dictionnaire Scientifique de St. Louis a purely imaginary publication. 

 That they insert some special secretion which induces gall growth is also 

 presumable from the fact that in some cases which I have studied the gall 

 forms (as in the Tenthredinidae) before the larva hatches. 



