THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 449 



confirm, not only the views I originally took as regards what 

 I have called the pseudobalani of the oak, but to extend 

 them to oak-spangles, bedeguars, and other abnormal pro- 

 ductions of trees and shrubs. While still occupied with the 

 enquiry, which seems likely to extend as long as my own 

 life, 1 have been much gratified in reading the remarks, 

 reprinted below, of a brother observer in America. They are 

 perfectly independent of mine, and, as will be seen, are 

 introduced only incidentally in his paper on galls. — Edward 

 Newman.^ 



"For ten years past I have been studying the habits of 

 the CynipidaB to determine, if possible, whether there are one 

 or two broods of these insects each year. Several years ago I 

 discovered the flies of C. q.-operator in the act of ovipositing 

 in the young acorns of Quercus ilicifolia, the oak on which 

 the woolly galls of this species are generally found. The 

 insect thrusts its ovipositor down between the acorn and the 

 acorn-cup, and, late in the summer, the acorns thus stung 

 proved abortive, while around them, and often protruding far 

 above the cup, were little acorn-like galls, each containing a 

 large Cynipideous larva. Several of these galls were often 

 found in each acorn-cup. That year nearly all the acorns were 

 affected, and there are more or less thus injured every year. 

 I have as yet failed lo rear any flies from these galls, probably 

 because I have failed to keep the galls in the proper condition 

 for development. 



" A later discovery, made three or four years ago, was that 

 of two, and I think three, species of Cynips in the act of 

 ovipositing in the buds of the oak, Q. alba, just as the buds 

 began to develope, but before the leaves were visible. The 

 relationship of these species to any known species was only 

 inferentially established. It is true that the leaves of several 

 oaks, on which I found one species very abundant, were 

 almost all covered with galls of C. q.-futilis, o.s., but the 

 females of this species were not so large as my new bud- 

 stinging species. 



" I have for the past three years carefully examined the 

 buds of Q. ilicifolia, hoping to find the producer of 

 C. q.-operator at work, but without success till this week, 

 when 1 found no less than thirty gall-flies ovipositing in the 

 buds of this oak. That they reallv are the producers of these 



y2 



