3?>4 [May 



(Proc. etc. IT, p. 448) on the improbability of an entirely agamous mode 

 of reproduction, on the other side, it seems still more difficult to suppose 

 that the dimorphism of the females, if it really exists in the genus Cy- 

 nips in Hartig's sense, should have remained undiscovered for more 

 than a quarter of a century, during which the question of the appa- 

 rent parthenogenesis of this genus has attracted the liveliest interest in 

 Europe. 



I read in the last number of the Berliner Entomologische Zeitschrift 

 for 1864, (page 405). that at the last annual meeting of the German 

 Naturalists at Griessen. Professor Hartig lectured upon the partheno- 

 genesis of Cynips. He said that the experiments of breeding these 

 insects from galls made during the last twenty -five years, produced 

 only females of the genera Cynips and Neuroterus. The females of 

 the agamous species oviposit immediately after the completion of their 

 development ; those of the bisexual species only after copulation. He 

 described the receptaculum seminis of the bisexual species; it contained 

 spermatozoa after the copula (in Spathegaster.) The agamous species 

 possess a receptaculum,, but it contained no spermatozoa. It must be 

 observed that there is nothing in these statements to subvert Mr. Walsh's 

 hypothesis, and. as improbabilities are not impossibilities, it may turn 

 out yet that some important fact, solving the vexed question, has been 

 overlooked by European observers. Hartig reared Neuroterus parasi- 

 ticus from the gall of a true Cynips. Neuroterus belongs to the first 

 section of Oynipidse and all its other species are psenidous. But Har- 

 tig suggests himself that N. parasiticus, together with several other 

 species, (which were all caught but not bred), may be considered as a 

 distinct genus, on account of the perfectly smooth mesonotum. which 

 has no parapsidal grooves. 



The rather common gall of Cynips globulus Fitch, a true agamous 

 Cynips in the sense of Hartig. can be recommended as a suitable object 

 of observation towards the solution of the mystery. And it would be 

 very gratifying if this solution, so happily begun by Mr. Walsh, was 

 also completed on this side of the ocean. 



New York, April 3. 1865. 



Section I. 



( •• Area radialis angusta ; areolea basalis." Hartig, Germ. Zeitschr. 

 II. p. 185.) 



Hartig's arrangement of the genera belonging to this section is as 

 follows 



