182 [January, 
entered into correspondence with friends in that county, who shortly 
supplied me with a good bushel of sound galls. Early in the spring fol- 
lowing, hosts of flies were developed, but all proved to be females ! This 
result was brought before the Entomological Society, and no doubt was 
duly registered in the Proceedings of that body. 
I next ascertained that Hartig, in Germany, had reared and ex- 
amined 10,000 flies, all Cynips divisa, with the same result. The same 
astonishing phenomenon had attended similar investigations of thousands 
of specimens of other species of Cynips ; so that the results obtained 
by me had merely confirmed those at which Hartig had previously ar- 
rived. I am acquainted with numerous similar investigations, attended 
with similar results, having been made by Mr. Parfitt and other English 
Entomologists, so that Mr. Newman's statement has had abundant 
precedent and confirmation. 
On many occasions I have received supposed males of Gynips 
Kollari, but these have invariably proved to be those of its parasites, 
Callimome, Decatoma, &c. 
About four years ago, Professor "Westwood brought before the 
Entomological Society a notice of the supposed discovery of the male 
of a species of Gynips. Baron Osten-Sacken discovered a remarkable 
gall on a leaf of the American red oak : it was petiolated, elongate- 
fusiform, and of a pale green ; the insect reared was said to be a male, 
supposed to be that of the Gynips eonfluens, Harris ; this was conceived 
to be a discovery that at once solved the mystery ; the galls producing 
the opposite sexes, it then appeared to be proved, were altogether of 
different forms. 
This supposed discovery of males, however, does not appear to have 
been confirmed by subsequent investigation, and we are left to infer 
that the connection between the male bred from the elongated gall and the 
female of the gall of Gynips eonfluens had probably no foundation in 
reality. 
Galls of Gynips Kollari are now so universally spread over this 
country, and the opportunities of investigation of this mystery so close 
at hand, that I cannot think it possible English Entomologists could, 
up to the present time, have failed to discover the male if that sex has 
really any existence. 
Since the supposed discovery of the male of Gynips, I have lost no 
opportunity of searching for it : every one who has paid . attention to 
this interesting subject, must have noticed the great disparity in the 
size of the galls of G. Kollari, but flies bred from galls one inch in 
diameter, and others from galls scarcely a quarter of that dimension, 
