92 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
elegant combs of a minute Ichneumon, Microgaster alvearius, 
the specific name being given in allusion to their wonderful 
resemblance to pieces of honeycomb: each cell contains a 
parasite, either in the state of larva, pupa, or imago.— 
Edward Newman.] 
On Oak-leaf Insects—The strength of the oak is propor- 
tioned to its trials or sufferings, and they are many and great, 
and the last, though not the least, of them in this country is 
the fly that deprives it of its offspring, and substitutes a 
changeling for a babe,—for acorns may be observed to be few 
or none where Devon-galls are many. One of the oak’s little 
trials is the Phylloxera, of which at this season there are 
indications beneath one oak-leaf of the former presence of 
a thousand individuals, and a large Hemerobid larva, under 
the same leaf, accounted for their absence, and would have 
probably soon gleaned up the little remnant, about ten in 
number, that was left. In addition to the three species of 
insects before mentioned, a little Callimome at this season 
takes part in the economy of the spangle by committing to it 
an egg, and seems to be very rare as compared with the 
spangles; these are very variable as to their occurrence: 
some leaves are quite unspangled, others have only a few 
rosy spangles; other leaves are covered beneath with two 
hundred or three hundred beginning-spangles, not so large 
as the head of a very small pin. The full-grown spangles 
increase the beauty of the foliage at this time by adding to 
the diversity of its tints, sometimes by yellow marks; in other 
cases, when they are in excessive abundance, by causing the 
leaf to curl up and to display the under side, which is wholly 
rusty red by means of the spangles. ‘The immense profusion 
of these is balanced by the fall of the leaf, which is previous 
to the swelling of the spangle and to the consequent growth 
of the enclosed grubs, and their increase is probably promoted 
by the destruction of birds and of other agents by which they 
are consumed, The little oak-button, formed by Neuroterus 
Numismatis, is sometimes thinly or thickly intermingled with 
the spangle, and sometimes has the whole of the under surface 
of the leaf to itself. The slug-like glutinous green grub of 
Blennocampa stramineipes is at this season stripping off by its 
jaws the covering of the oak-leaf with exceeding neatness, 
and leaving the skeleton quite transparent, with all the veins 
untouched,—Francis Walker, 
