90 H. F. BASSETT. 



r>. IV. Howertoni n. sp. 



Galls. — Minute blotches showing on both sides of the leaves of 

 an oak (species unknown to me) found in New Mexico. They are 

 a little less than .05 of an inch by .03 in diameter. I have only two 

 leaves on which these galls occur, the largest, one inch by three- 

 eighths, and on this there are eighteen galls, and they are by no 

 means crowded. There is no free larval cell, and the gall walls are 

 very thin. It is covered with the same pubescence as the rest of the 

 leaf. On the upperside the color is a dull brown, beneath it is the 

 same as the leaf. The insects perforate the gall on the underside. 



Eight minute parasites were found in the box containing the galls 

 and one true gall-fly. Six galls were perforated, but the insects had 

 not been able to esciape. I removed three of these dead flies and 

 from the four more or less imperfect specimens get the following 

 description : 



Gall-flies all females. Head black; auteiinse fourteen jointed? (I am not 

 ((uite sure as to the nnmher of the joints); first and second of equal length, 

 short and both very thick ; the second thicker than long; remaining joints ex- 

 tremely slender and all pale yellowish brown, changing to dusky in the last six 

 or seven joints. Thorax black, shining; scutellum less shining. Abdomen 

 shining brown or black, compressed ; ovipositor in all my specimens exserted and 

 extending forward to the tip of the scutellum. Legs: middle of the femur and 

 tibia dark shining brown or black, with pale joints; tarsi pale yellow. Wings 

 not fully expanded, but showing pale brown veins, a large areolet, long radial 

 area and the cubitus reaching only halfway to the first transverse vein. Length 

 of the body not quite .05 inch. 



Named for Mr. W. J. Howerton, the discoverer. 



.\ri..4X Hartig. 



Hartig, who founded this genus, wrote '' Ayla.r' (Germar's Ent. 

 Zeitschrift, II, pp. 186 and 195-96, and III, pp. 342-48), but changed 

 the orthography to Aulux without remark in Vol. IV, p. 413, of the 

 same work. Baron Osten Sacken places a parasitic species reared 

 1)V him from the galls of Cynips {Ayidricus) futilis O. S. hesitatingly 

 in this genus (adopting the name as first written), and later adds 

 two other species, A. pirafa and A. sylvestris also reared from oak 

 galls. All these have since been removed to the closely related 

 genus Peridistis, and it was left to Mr. W. H. Ashraead to describe 

 the first American species that really belongs to this genus. His 

 Aulax HitrriiKjtoni is described in the Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. XIV, p. 

 146. 



