THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 171 



Care should be taken to have the receptacle very dry, and not 

 to cause the condensation of vapour inside by leaving it in 

 the sun. 



When we are breeding from galls 'produced by sawflies 

 (Tenlhredinidee), which occur almost exclusively on various 

 species of willows, or sonic gall-gnats (Cecidomyidae), we 

 must have a small quantity of baked earth in the bottom of 

 the jar, as their transformations are subterranean. Great care 

 is necessary in breeding llie various insects from galls, because 

 the habits of some of the Cynipidae, Chalcididae, Ichneu- 

 nionidas, &c., — all of which are freely bred from galls, — are 

 such that they may very easily be introduced into the galli- 

 pot, and on their emergence of course are labelled as 

 inhabitants of the galls themselves: for instance, how easy to 

 introduce some half-dozen Aphides (plant-lice), which probably 

 each contain an Allotria (Cynipida^) or Aphidius (Ichneu- 

 monidae) ; then, again, there are the numerous Chalcids and 

 Ichneumons, which are parasitic on leaf-mining Diptera, 

 Hymenoplera, and Lepidoptera; the leaf-miners themselves 

 are also very liable to cause confusion ; and when we 

 remember that Mr. Walker bred examples of seventy-five 

 different species (hundreds of specimens of some) from 

 one species of gall in one year, — and these belonging to 

 aeven orders of insects, besides Arachnida and Acari, — it is 

 evident the breeder of gall-flies (by this I mean, here, the 

 different insects inhabiting galls) will find quite enough to 

 occupy his attention without the interlopers. 



After we breed the insects, and when we perhaps see the 

 glasses of some twenty gallipots swarming with flies, we want 

 to know how to preserve them well and quickly: this will 

 best be accomplished by procuring a small basin of boiling 

 water, and by holding the glass some little distance above, 

 and giving it a tap, the greater part of the insects will fall or 

 jump into the water with their wings and legs extended; 

 then collect them on small pieces of paper — thick blotting, 1 

 use — and pull their antennae, wings, legs, &c., out, as best 

 suited for examination, and so leave them for a day, when the 

 dried insects will fly off the paper at the least touch from a 

 small knife or even pin ; they may then be arranged on cut 

 pieces of card-board (not too thick) with gum tragacanth, and 

 so pinned, — separate species on separate slips; this is not 



