132 INSECUTOR INSCITI/E MENSTRUUS 



This singular species was hitherto known by the gall only. It is very 

 distinct and characteristic and may be known by the form of the scutel- 

 lum, compressed and sharply keeled abdomen, and the highly polished 

 thorax with parallel parapsidal grooves. Described from a single female 

 from the Black Mountains, North Carolina, altitude 3,500 feet. The 

 gall is quite common, but the imago is difficult to raise. 



A NEW OAK GALL FROM MEXICO 



{Hymenoplera, Cynipidai) 

 By LEWIS H. WELD 



Late in December, 1911, Mrs. Dwight Fumess, of GuadjJajara, 

 Mexico, sent me some white woolly galls tinged with pink on oak twigs 

 and resembling those of Callirhytis seminator Harris. They came from 

 Tarecuato, in the State of Michoacan. One of these galls is represented 

 in figure A. A distinctly marked black and white species of Synergus 

 began to issue January 5, 1912, and continued until after February 1 . 



On April 7, 1912, 1 received from Mrs. Furness another box of simi- 

 lar galls but so much larger that I at first thought they must be a different 

 species. These were almost pure white. See figure B. They are 

 probably full-grown specimens of the same species, and from these a 

 Callirhytis began to issue April 20 and continued to emerge until May 

 20, 1912, coming out in greatest numbers the last week in April. On 

 June 1 , 1912, more of the same species of Synergus mentioned above 

 began to emerge, males and females, coming out at intervals until late in 

 December, 1912. Both species are probably new. 



Host : An unknown species of oak, probably of the white oak group, 

 and the one common to high altitudes on the western slope of the central 

 plateau of Mexico. 



Gall : Large woolly mass nearly or quite encircling twigs 5 mm. or less 

 in diameter. When full grown the largest specimen measured 85 mm. 

 long by 60 mm. in diameter. Each mass is made up of separate ele- 

 ments, from a few to over 1 50 in number, each of which contains a single 

 larval cavity and each of which is covered with a dense coating of long 

 white wool as in C. seminator. But the elements of this gall are quite 

 different from those, being rhomboidal in outline instead of round spindle- 

 shaped, variously distorted by pressure so that no two are alike ; they are 

 not prolonged at apex into a long slender spine which bears the hairs as 



