578 Rev. M. J. BEnkELEY on a Gall gathered in Cuba 
culum is very singular*: but on these points I am happy to give an ex- 
tract from a letter of Mr. MacLeay, which appears to me extremely in- 
teresting. 
“ I have examined the production of the Ochnaceous leaf under the micro- 
scope, and am convinced with you that it is the work of an insect, but I have 
not been so successful as you in discovering this insect. On observing, how- 
ever, the structure of the nidus, I conceive it to be much more analogous to 
that of some of the woody galls than to the cocoons figured by Curtis in the 
paper to which you have referred in the Zoological Transactions. The first | 
cocoon figured as that of a Melolonthidous insect is that of a whole Lepidopte- - 
rous genus very common in America and New Holland. I have plenty of 
specimens collected by myself. ‘The second figured by Curtis, and which is i 
so like a gall, is more new to me; but I know several Lepidopterous cocoons : 
analogous to it which appear to be galls, or rather productions of the tree to | 
which they are attached. I have bred the insects, however, frequently, and 
found that the substance of these pseudo-galls is not vegetable but animal; 
that is, the caterpillar composes them of a sort of mason-work of its ex- 
crement, coated inside and out with a varnished silk or silky varnish. A 
have little doubt that this is the composition of the cocoons figured by Curtis, 
but who was not aware of the fact from never having had an opportunity of 
investigating the ceconomy of these insects in their native country. Cocoons 
necessarily have opercula, or at least a place more easy of exit than their 
general substance will allow. So has the production on the Ochnaceous leaf, 
but its structure is vegetable, and I am therefore inclined to consider it a true 
gall, although I know no other instance of a gall with an operculum. The 
question then is, whether the larva you found has feet or not; if it has, the 
larva is probably Lepidopterous, which would be very singular. If it has not, 
the larva is probably Hymenopterous, allied to the Diplolepidæ. Upon the 
whole I consider it to be a gall most likely made by an Hymenopterous in- 
sect.” é | 
* It is sar that the gall described and figured by Réaumur (Mém. pour servir à I Hist. Nat, d 
Insectes, tom. iii. p. 448. pl. 39. figg. 14), quoted by Mr. Curtis in Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. i. p. 307, has 
not an operculum ; for he distinctly says, that before it spins its cocoon it pierces a hole in dep 
and the figure indeed shows the same tolerably well, 
