THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 429 
I have not met with such an instance. Will correspondents 
kindly favour me with their experience ? 
Fungus on Pear-trees—The curious malady which is 
described as injuring the pear-trees at Saffron Walden is the 
result of a parasitic fungus, named Reestelia cancellata. The 
Rev. M. J. Berkeley, to whom the question has been referred, 
recommends picking off tlre infected leaves and burning 
them,—a slow and most wearisome process; but I know of 
none better or so effectual. I have this year received speci- 
mens of the same genus of fungus on the twigs, leaves and 
fruit of the whitethorn ; on the leaves and fruit of the medlar; 
and on the fruit of the mountain ash. A valued correspondent 
has remarked, that the ravages of this genus of Fungi seem 
confined to Rosaceous plants. 1L am well aware that this 
subject does not strictly come within the scope of the ‘ Ento- 
mologist, but the specimens having been sent me under the 
impression that they were the work of an insect, I could not 
hesitate to notice them. The effect of this parasite on the 
whitethorn is very curious: it causes the twigs to swell and 
curve, and assume the appearance of the larve of Lepidoptera 
and other objects. It is difficult to conceive any growth 
more grotesque than some of these fungus-galls, which I 
gathered this year in the neighbourhood of Croydon. 
Squirrels eating the Woody galls of the Oak.—Mr. H. B. 
Murray informs the readers of the ‘ Field’ that the galls in 
question—which are produced by Cynips lignicola, as I 
pointed out many years ago in the ‘ Zoologist’—are opened 
by squirrels, and not by titmice, as | always supposed.. He 
says:—“I have myself seen the ground under the oak-tree 
strewn with the fragments of these galls, and there could be 
no donbt of squirrels being the operators, as they were seen 
in the act.” It would have been rather more satisfactory had 
Mr. Murray been able to write that he hzmself had seen 
the squirrels eating these galls, instead of saying “ they were 
seen” in the act; the expression has a want of precision 
that the writer might possibly be able to remove. I rather 
infer that he has not himself seen them. I have examined 
most critically hundreds of these galls at Croham Hurst, near 
Croydon, with the express object of ascertaining what crea- 
ture really did attack them; and although there are evident 
marks, as of the beak of a bird, in many of them, and 
