•282 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



gradual that I am unable to differentiate them. Beneath the 

 maple leaves are (occasionally) a few very similar to these 

 larger ones, but still more sparingly distributed, and differing 

 like the surface on which they are placed in being more 

 hairy, the aperture being commonly a simple depression into 

 them from the upper surface of the leaves, whilst a fourth 

 form or species appears beneath the leaf in swollen tubercular 

 clusters, also pubescent, and often forming a ring on the 

 under side of the leaf surrounding the aperture of the gall 

 above. 



During the last week of September pale yellowish fawn- 

 coloured Phytopii were still to be found in some of these 

 galls, and a little later I found a plentiful sprinkling of them 

 amongst the hairs on the back of the leaf, or walking briskly 

 along the maple twig; and on the 8th of October they were 

 to be found on the maple buds, and on tearing this bud to 

 pieces they were noticeable among the scales at the base, not 

 apparently inside, but clinging where the leaf-stem and twig 

 most sheltered the leaf-bud. 



On the lime I found the Phytopti straying about the 

 leaves on the 11th of September ; and on the 12th of October 

 they were to be found both beneath the leaf and — as in the 

 maple — at the base of the leaf-buds. Some of these nail- or 

 rather pointed cowl-like galls were on leaves of Tilia gran- 

 difolia, and relatively to these the legend given in Sir E. 

 Smith's ' English Flora' (vol. iii., p. 21), may be of some 

 interest, — of the old limes of this species in the churchyard of 

 Sedlitz, in Bohemia, which were reported to have borne 

 miraculously hooded leaves ever since the monks of a neigh- 

 bouring convent were executed on tiiem. An examination 

 into the matter by some passing entomologist might give us 

 an earlier date than we have at present for the observation of 

 Phytoptus galls. 



In the case of the birch "witch-knot" Phytoptus we have 

 the hibernation of the gall-raite clearly in the diseased buds, 

 though they may be elsewhere also ; but in lime and maple 

 tht3 drying of the gall on the deciduous leaf, or the presence 

 of decay or fungoid growths unfitting it for its tenant, 

 naturally point to the fitness of the mite leaving its fallen 

 home to seek a securer shelter. Its dispersion to neigh- 

 bouring trees would also be brought about by the mite- 



