Earlier Views. 3 



true that from the same gall there had emerged not 

 only one male but also two different female forms, 

 it would have been fatal to the theory of partheno- 

 genesis in the agamous Cynipidae. All the agamous 

 species would come at once to be regarded as 

 dimorphous female forms, and it would only be 

 necessary to ascertain which were the allied female 

 forms. It looked as if we had here among the gall- 

 flies a phenomenon analogous to that which Wallace 

 had discovered among the Malay Papilionidae, where 

 females of the same species are found of two or even 

 three entirely different forms. Walsh's theory, how- 

 ever, received but little countenance, and in Germany 

 it was refuted by Reinhard ^ who succeeded in estab- 

 lishing in the most satisfactory manner that partheno- 

 genesis undoubtedly did exist among many species 

 of Cynipidae. After this the subject seems to have 

 dropped, and I am not aware of any researches, either 

 in favour of or against the views of Walsh, having 

 been made for a considerable time. Indeed it was not 

 until 1873, after Walsh's death, that his fellow-country- 

 man Bassett ^ published some fresh observations on the 

 propagation of Cynipidae, of which the most interesting 

 is the following : — Bassett had repeatedly found 

 enormous numbers of a gall belonging to a species 

 of Cynips, on a small oak {Quercus hicolor). These 

 galls appeared with the leaves, causing shapeless 

 swellings of the petiole and midrib ; they contained 



^ Reinhard, ' Die Hypothesen iiber die Fortpflanzungsweise der 

 eingeschlechtigen GalKvespen,' Berl. Entotn. Zeitschr. 1865, vol. ix. 

 ^ Canadian Eniomol. (May, 1873, vol. v. pp. 91-94). 



B 2 



