190* ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 96 



A. Fitch, of Maldon, England, and he wrote, "The saw-fly I have but little 

 doubt is identical with our British Nematus gallicola, Westw. (vallisnerii, 

 Hart.) as far as I can judge from the female and gall sent." 



The female insect makes a slight wound in the leaf, and then deposits 

 an egg in the wound. It may repeat the process a number of times on the 

 same leaf. Around the egg the gall begins to form, and it soon becomes 

 a stronghold and storehouse for the larva that is hatched from the egg. 



What a strange existence is led by this larva ! It is unacquainted 

 with its kind ; its knows nothing of its future ; it abides in its "assigned and 

 native dwelling place." Its sole occupation is eating away the walls of 

 its cell, as they thicken around it, and making room for its own growth. 

 It obeys a blind instinct; and so it spends the summer. In the autumn 

 it is carried in the leaf to the ground, or, if the leaves be unusually per- 

 sistent, it bites its way out of the gall and drops to the ground. In either 

 case, having vacated its cell, it creeps into the soil, and there spins itself 

 a close, brown cocoon of the size of a grain of wheat, and in this it abides, 

 changing to a pupa about the close of the winter. In spring the perfect 

 flies appear. 



At one period of its existence this insect is liable to the attacks of a 

 very formidable foe, the house sparrow. 



From my study window I can see three large willows standing in my 

 yard, and several times, at the close of summer, I have observed flocks of 

 sparrows busily engaged in cracking the Nematus galls with their bills, 

 and picking out the larvae. 



I do not think this Nematus does any harm to the tree, and the kidney- 

 shaped, rosy-tinted galls are, rather than not, an embellishment to the 

 leaves. 



A, b, The Bedeguar of the Rose, or, as the children in England call it. 

 Poor Robin's Pincushion, affords an example of a gall community. It is 

 formed by a cynips, Rhodites rosoe, L. It consists of a number of cells 

 closely united and tufted with numerous branched filaments, which serve 

 the inhabitants of the galls as a protection from the winter's cold, and 

 also, it may be, against the attacks of feathered enemies. 



I do not find this gall around Quebec ; but, some years ago, I found a 

 number of them upon wild rose bushes growing in a pasture at the foot of 

 Yamaska Mountain, on a farm that belonged to the late Rev. Canon Robin- 

 son ; and I was able to raise the gall-fly from them in considerable num- 

 bers. 



Another interesting example of these polythalamous galls is that of 

 CaUirhytis seminator, Harris. This pretty insect lays its eggs m the 

 wounds it makes around the twigs of the white oak. The galls develop 

 into a flocculent mass, imbedded in which the larval cells may be found. 

 The perfect insects appear in the end of July. Galls of this kind are, in 

 some seasons, abundant on the Island of Orleans. 



B, a, I have often found upon the Canadian Blueberry (Vaccinium 

 Canadense, Kalm), a very pretty gall of the size of a cherry, and of a rosy 

 hue. The maker of this, Solenozopheria vaccinii was described by Mr. 

 Ashmead in 1887 (Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. XIY., p. 149). I have never 

 raised it ; but I have obtained from the galls a species of guest-fly, Megaris- 

 mus nuhiUpennis, Ashmead, in considerable numbers. A cross cut of a 

 gall will shew the cells of this parasite in orderly arrangement. The 



