BRITISH GALL-INSECTS. 



By Albert Muller, F.L.S. 



In return for tlie numerous fiivours and liberal contributions 

 received at the bands of many of our best observers, scattered 

 all over Ena;land and Scotland, it is my pleasant duty to 

 offer here for the fiist time to them and to Entomologists in 

 general a summary, however defective, of our actual know- 

 ledge of British gall-insects proper. I wish I could include 

 Ireland too, the native isle of the late gifted Mr. Haliday, 

 but no information or specimens have thence reached me. 

 I hope, — may I not say we all hope? — this hint will stir up 

 the younger naturalists of that land not to let the grass grow 

 in the intellectual foot-prints left by their great countryman. 

 The following list of gall-insects proper will exclude tiie 

 numerous Acaridce, producing similar excrescences.* It 

 will further exclude the vast host of parasitic or inquilinous 

 creatures of all sorts, which haunt stalls without beinn- 

 directly or otherwise the prime cause of their appearance. 

 There are animal and vegetable galls. With the former we 

 are not concerned here; they occur mostly on or under the 

 skin of living mammals and birds, and are caused by Dipte- 

 rous (^Qilstrus) or acarideous parasites. Even man is not 

 exempt, as Signor Moriggia has described and figured a 

 sinf^ular hornv excrescence of great lenjjth, jrrowins; from the 

 back of the hand of a lady, and containing in its cavities 



* I hope shortly to treat of the gall-producing Acaridct elsewhere. 

 Contributions are always welcome. 



1872. B 



