of certain species of Willow. — Part 2nd. 267 



Gall-gnats. A closet-naturalist, having any one of these calls contain- 

 ing Anthonomus submitted to his notice, would be apt to conclude, 

 that it was the Anihonomw that made the gall. 



On July 29 I found numerous larvae and two pupje of sycophant a in 

 the Tcnthredinidous gall S. pomum n. sp., a single individual only iu 

 a single gall, in every instance unaccompanied by any Tenthredinidous 

 larva. Nearly one-half, out of a large lot of these calls opened at this 

 date, were thus tenauted, most of them being bored fir the exit of the 

 beetle ; but two days afterwards I found a single gall occupied by two 

 Anthonomus larvae in distinct cells separated by a thin partition, one 

 cell bored and the other not. Except a single one, none of the galls 

 containing Nematus larvae were then bored. Juty 311 found about 12 

 imagos of sycophanta in the gall S. pomum, one only in each gall j and 

 August 13 — 29 I bred large numbers of them from these galls. From 

 these facts I infer that this curculio, while in the larva state, must destroy 

 the egg or the very young larva of the gall-making Nematus, just as 

 Anthonomus cratsegi n. sp. evidently does, and just as the larva of A. 

 scutellatus* gradually destroys the young plant-lice among which it lives; 

 otherwise the two larvae would coexist in the same gall. Westwood 

 indeed records the fact, that a Balaninus "resides in the large and 

 fleshy galls upon the leaves of Willows, occasionally in company with 

 the larvae of Nematus intercus" (Intr. I, p. 342,) which last insect he 

 afterwards names as the maker of the gall, stating further that the 

 gall is monothalamous, not polythalamous. (II, p. 105.) But out of 

 hundreds of S. pomum that I have opened, I never found the Antliono- 

 mus larva "in company" with the Nematus larva, if by the phrase "in 

 company" is to be understood, that the two insects occur together in 

 the same individual gall, and not merely in the same lot of galls. On 

 July 30 I found two sycophanta imagos in the Tenthredinidous galls S. 

 desmodioides n. sp., and many others subsequently. And on Aug. 28 

 I found a single sycophanta imago still remaining in the Tenthredini- 

 dous gall S. nodus n. sp., many of the other galls being bored and 

 empty, from which no doubt the beetle had already made its exit. 



Anthonomus tessellatus, n. sp. Rufous, opaque and pulverulescent with nu- 

 merous fine, short, appressed, white hairs or elongated scales. Head finely and 

 densely punctured; a large puncture between the hind edges of the eyes, which 

 is prolonged between the eyes in a longitudinal stria. Rostrum free from hairs, 

 fully as long as the head and thorax together, arquated in a circular arc of 45°; 

 antenna rufous, inserted 3 of the way to the tip of the rostrum. Thorax more 

 coarsely punctured, i wider than long, its sides convex, but slightly constricted 



* See the note on page 266. 



