INTEODITCTION XVll 



Galls, often verj- large at the roots or on tlie trunk 

 near the ground. 



" How wonderfully observant Sir Thomas Browne 

 must have been to distinguish the various galls, etc., 

 and to point them out so distinctly. — E. N. B." 



The second reference is : 



" Letter No. 5. Dr. Browne to Merrett (Dr. 

 Christopher Merrett) 



" I made enumeration of the excretions of the oake 

 which might bee obserued in england because I con- 

 ceived they would bee most obserual)le if you set them 

 down together, not minding whether there were any 

 addition by excrementum fungosum vermiculis scat ens 

 I only meant an vsuall excretion, soft and fungous at 

 first and pale and sometimes cowered in part with a 

 fresh red growing close vnto the sprouts, first full of 

 maof^ots in little woodden cells which afterwards 



CIO 



turne into little reddish browne or bay flies. of 

 the tubera indica vermiculis scatentia 1 send you 

 a peece, they are as bigg as good Tennis-balls and 

 ligneous." 



The Oak-apple and the Truffle-gall are the kinds 

 here referred to. 



It was not until Withering's ' British Plants ' was 

 joublished (1776-1796), that galls were again definitely 

 treated of. In Edition 3, vol. ii, p. 388, it is stated 

 that " the balls or galls upon the leaves are occasioned 

 by a small insect with four wings." It would appear 

 from this that the galls of Sjpathegaster haccarnm and 

 others were well known to botanists, and the cause of 

 their origin understood. 



In 'The Entomologist' for the years 1874-1878 

 there appeared a translation from Dr. Gr. L. Mayr's 

 'Die Mitteleuropaischen Eichengallen,' with numerous 

 wood-cuts of the galls. Francis Walker, E. A. Fitch, 

 and others, added notes as to the occurrence or other- 

 wise of the species in Britain, and a most valuable 

 compilation was thus made of the knowledge of those 

 days. 



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