THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 245 



name of his correspondent, which contained much valuable 

 information ; but, as it appeared, that letter was written by 

 Mr. Parfilt, of Exeter, who has subsequently written me a 

 more amplified paper for publication in the ' Zoologist.' I 

 have preferred giving this further on, seeing it will be found to 

 embrace all the points mentioned in the letter to Mr. Stainton, 

 and others equally interesting. At a meeting of the Entomo- 

 logical Society, on the 5lh November, 1855, Mr. Curtis read 

 the following note from the late Mr. Haliday, who had 

 collected a great number of these galls at Glanville's Wootton, 

 the seat of the late Mr. Dale, in Dorsetshire: — "I cannot 

 identify it with any Linnean or Fabrician species, but it is 

 the Cynips Lignicola of Hartig, and the only one of that 

 group to which the ink-gall belongs, that occurs so far north 

 as England, or even Northern Germany." (Zool. 4964.) It 

 should be stated in this place that, at p. 7 of the fourth 

 volume of the ' Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' the Rev. 

 T. A. Marshall — who is indefatigable in the study of the 

 British Cynipidae, and in every respect competent to speak 

 with authority on the subject — says that the Cynips Quercus- 

 petioli of Linneus is a species of Synergus, and a parasite on 

 Cynips Lignicola. I have no precise recollection of the date 

 when this gall first became known to myself: the observations 

 above quoted would seem to indicate its having been estab- 

 lished in Britain at least half a century ; but I cannot 

 refer to any evidence of its non-existence here at an earlier 

 period. The absence of a record is the only reason we can 

 possibly assign for supposing the absence of the gall; and 

 when we consider how very recently galls have been observed 

 by us at all, and how very small is the number of observers 

 even now, we must not lay too much stress on the silence 

 of our predecessors. This gall certainly now forces itself 

 into notice, and it does not appear thus to have intruded 

 itself on the notice of our entomologists during the half 

 century previous to that in which we are now living: this is, 

 perhaps, in favour of its absence at an earlier date. Then 

 with regard to its economical bearing on our country. The 

 alarmists prophesied the speedy destruction of the oak, — a 

 tree that is metaphorically considered the bulwark of British 

 safety. Now 1 have yet to learn that it does any appreciable 

 injury to the adult oak. Its effect upon the sapling, so often 



