100 HYMENOPTERA. 



these autumnal flies all were females, with not a single male 

 among them." This is not the history of our Cynips ligni- 

 cola ; the galls which I collected in August, and none were 

 ready for gathering earlier, began to produce flies towards 

 the end of the month ; flies continued to be developed during 

 September and October, even a iew early in November, all 

 being females; the proportion from which flies were pro- 

 duced being rather more than half of the whole. Those 

 which do not produce flies the fii-st year have, on all former 

 occasions, eat their way out during April and May of the 

 following year; such has been my experience of the flies 

 produced from the monothalamous galls of Cynips lignicola; 

 and with regard to the polythalamous galls of Cynips radicis, 

 I have reared thousands of the females only. 



I have already observed that no addition has been made to 

 the species of our British Toinnicidcey but I cannot pass by, 

 without notice, what on its first announcement appeared to be 

 a grand addition : a black woodpecker was supposed to have 

 been shot at Wytham near Oxford, in whose crop was found a 

 large number of specimens o^ Formica hermilanea ; among 

 these were perfect examples of males, females, and of large and 

 small workers ; the bird had been an experienced collector. 

 Subsequent investigation of the evidence respecting the place 

 of capture, together with the ascertained fact of several black 

 woodpeckers having been exposed for sale in Leadenhall 

 Market in London, have quite dispelled the first glad tidings 

 which we fondly hoped would have proved tidings of the 

 capture of the long looked for species that has been incorpo- 

 rated in some of the earlier lists of British FormicidcB ; but 

 this, like the announcement of the capture of the fine conti- 

 nental species, Formica pubesce?iSj supposed to have occurred 

 in Scotland, has proved a fallacy; the date of the birds 

 having been shot, October 24th or 25th, and the fact of the 



