1865.] 141 



Although theso insects soon go to pieces if kept in laurel, they are easy to set 

 directly after being killed ; care must be taken, in displaying their slender antennse, 

 to keep all the joiuts level, as the club is apt to turn in a different direction to the 

 thin basal joints. — E. C. Rye, 281, King's Road, Chelsea, October, 1865. 



Notes on the ivoolly gall of the Oak. — When looking for currant galls on the 16th 

 of May, 1865, I found a gall on oak of a very remarkable character. After this 

 date I continued to find the same kind of galls for a few weeks, and from an ex- 

 amination of these, I am enabled to give the following description. Nothing can 

 give a better idea of this gall than a ball of cotton wool. When young the filaments 

 are very white, and rather transparent ; when the gall is more mature they change 

 to whity-brown. In the first stage, their whiteness renders them very conspicuous 

 objects ; while in the latter, they are easily mistaken for pale oak apples, by which 

 I always mean the gall of Cynips terminalis, and like the oak apple, they often have 

 stipules at their base by way of calyx. I have never seen the woolly galls except 

 in connection with the male catkins. Two small ones, found by me May 16th, were 

 actually growing half-way down the catkin, in currant gall style, and many of the 

 larger galls have the end of a catkin protruding from them. I am inclined to 

 think, that it is always the male catkin stalk which is punctured, but that the gall, 

 when full grown, often entirely hides the catkin. In the centre of the gall there is 

 a cluster of cells ; each appears to have its own shell, and is less united to its 

 neighbour than in the well-known Bedeguar of Cynips rosce. The wool is also com- 

 posed of simple threads, while those of the Bedeguar have lateral projections. In 

 " Insect Architecture," page 382, there is a gall described and figured very similar 

 to the one in question, and I suppose my gall to be the same as that found on oak 

 near Bath by Mr. C. E. Broome, exhibited at the meeting of the Entomological 

 Society on the 7th November, 1864, by Mr. Stainton. 



On the 3rd of June the first flies came out, after this I had swarms of them. 

 The first parasite appeared on the 12th, they proved to be a species of Eulophus. 

 The galls did not cease to pi'oduce flies till June 27th ; these last were parasites. 

 If you, or any of your correspondents, can furnish me with the name of this gall- 

 insect I shall be greatly obliged.— Henry Waring Ktdd, Godalming, Sept. 18i/i. 



Galls on the oak. — I am very glad to see that Mr. Armistead proposes to 

 pubhsh a work upon Galls, as this subject has long possessed great attractions 

 for me. I do not think that the mode in which the artichoke gall of the oak is 

 formed is properly explained in Entomological works. Instead of being formed 

 by the enlarged scales of a leaf-bud, I feel certain, from my own observation, that 

 it is formed out of the morbidly developed bracts which are normally consolidated 

 together to form the involucre or capsule at the base of the acorn. Moreover, the 

 Cynips, which causes this malformation, cannot be said to form a " gall" at all, for 

 I find, by examining a great number of specimens, that the larva lives within the 

 minute abortive acorn, in the centre of the tuft of scales forming the artichoke. 



I possess an interesting specimen, which I think clearly shows it is a flower- 

 bud and not a leaf-bud, selected by Cynips quercus-fjemtiui; in which to deposit her 

 egg. It is a twig of the pedunculated variety of the oak, and at its extremity is an 

 artichoke gall closely sessile by the side of two terminal buds. A little below this 



