86 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



bill whether from their absence, or from not having a sufficiently 

 powerful object-glass to discover them, I was unable to see 

 more than these five pairs of bristles on or under the body. 

 The corrugated furrows beneath, behind the insertion of each 

 pair of legs and of the head, with their longitudinal lobes, 

 and the movement of the mouth, as the mite moved it on the 

 surface of the slide, were clearly discernible. 



About the beginning of February I found numerous egg- 

 lilie bodies amongst the diseased leaf-scales, from which 

 Phytopti were shortly after disclosed, occasionally perishing 

 whilst partly excluded from the pellicle, so as to give ample 

 opportunity for examination. These eggs, or egg-like bodies, 

 were bluntly orate (as in fig. 5, magnifted), much produced 

 and lobed at one end, in a way that would correspond with 

 the caudal extremity of the contained Acarus. The pellicle 

 was similarly transversely striated, and before the exclusion 

 of the contained gall-mite was dragged out of all resemblance 

 to the form of an egg, and left sometimes with the markings 

 at the two extremities, having much the appearance of a cast 

 skin, except in the absence of limbs and appendages. 



The Phytoptus, on exclusion, was fully half the size of the 

 full-grown specimens ; and from the relative measure of the 

 egg-like mass, and the full-grown Phytopti, the change of 

 skin seems to be the more probable hypothesis than original 

 hatching. Here, however, more observation will probably 

 make all clear as the season proceeds, 



Islewortb, Middlesex, Feb. 1877. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF OAK-GALLS. 



Translated from Dr. G.X. Mayr's 'Die Mitteleuropiiiselien Eichengallen. 



By Edward A. Fitch. 



(Continued from p. 70.) 



63. Neuroterus lenticularis, 01. [N. Malpighii, H.). — 

 The honour of having satisfactorily distinguished the flies 

 which produce the lenticular galls is due to Von Schlechtendal, 

 but the distinction of the galls themselves still leaves room 

 for improvement ; tlie three species which most resemble 

 one another are N. lenlicularis, 01. (A'^. Malpighii, Hart), N. 



