244 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the galls were situated in the axils of the leaf, and not on the 

 petiole." (Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond. : reported Zool. 4567.) 

 It is further reported, at p. 4571 of the 'Zoologist' (dated, 

 December, 1854), that at the following meeting Mr. Jordan 

 stated that he had known these galls for twenty years, and 

 that a medical man at Lympstone, near Exmouth, " used 

 them always to make his ink, and tried to impress upon the 

 country people the use that might spring from making them 

 an article, so to speak, of exportation." The pecuniary 

 advantage of exporting these galls, at a time when we were 

 importing the Aleppo galls for the very purpose of ink- 

 making, does not seem very obvious. Still the project of 

 utilizing the galls in the manufacture of ink was praise- 

 worthy, but it was doomed to undergo a decided discourage- 

 ment from the careful analysis of Dr. Hart Vinen (reported 

 Zool. 5025), from which it appears that these galls contained 

 but 17 per cent, of tannin, whereas the Aleppo galls, the 

 well-known ink-gall of commerce, contained 56 per cent. 

 " Dr. Vinen," commenting on this great disparity, " thinks it 

 possibly in some degree attributable to the fact that whereas 

 all the Aleppo galls were entire, those from Devonshire were 

 all perforated by the Cynips in escaping : it was a well-known 

 fact that a sample of the galls of commerce were depreciated 

 in value by the presence of any that were perforated. 

 Dr. Vinen, however, wished to call the attention of the 

 Society (the Linnean) to the extraordinary discrepancy 

 existing between the various published analyses of the 

 Aleppo galls, which was greater even than that between his 

 own analyses of the Devonshire and Aleppo galls : Sir 

 Humphrey Davy's analysis yielded 26 per cent, of tannin j 

 Pelour's, 40; Leconnet's, 60; Guibourl's, 65; Mohr's, 72; 

 and Buchner's, 77." I assume that tannin is the element 

 required in ink-manufacture, and, this being so, it is most 

 desirable that experiments, for testing the amount of this 

 element, should be made on galls in a precisely similar 

 condition as to age and maturity. I am uncertain whether 

 this vegetable dye is still a necessity in the manufacture of 

 ink, or whether minerals have not superseded its use. Con- 

 tinuing the English history of this species, we find that at a 

 meeting of the Entomological Society in February, 1855, 

 Mr. Stainton read a letter on the subject, without giving the 



