249 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
appearance. When parasites develope themselves in the 
larva-cell we sometimes meet with a stronger and rather hard 
condensation of the gall-substance which surrounds the cells. 
The gall, green in summer, becomes yellowish in September, 
and is pierced by the imago towards the end of this month. 
Most of the parasites and inquilines, however, do not come 
forth till the following winter or spring. It adheres so 
firmly to the twigs that we often meet with galls two or 
three years old still attached to the twigs. Many of these 
galls may be mistaken for those of Cynips tinctoria, vet are 
to be distinguished by their brownish yellow colour and 
obscure reticulations on the surface, by the absence of any 
distinctly-pronounced interior gall, and by the earlier 
emergence of the perfect insect. The gall of Cynips 
tinctoria occurs in the southern half of Europe, though 
near Vienna it is no longer frequently met with; that of 
Cynips Kollari, however, is found as far as the German 
Ocean.—G. L. Mayr. 
The occurrence in England of this gall, which has received 
the name of Devonshire gall,* has been a prolific source of 
entomological correspondence, and I may say of entomological 
literature. Probably many early records of such occurrences 
have escaped entomologists, from their being published in 
newspapers and other periodicals neither exclusively nor 
chiefly devoted to subjects in any way connected with Natural 
History. Entomologists who have read such sensational 
paragraphs on the subject of oak-galls, and the loss they are 
likely to bring on the farmers and landowners, may reason- 
ably be excused for disregarding them, as we certainly do 
the “ unparalleled phenomenon” of multitudes of winged-ants 
making their appearance at the end of August, or the “ un- 
precedented event” of a “ mosquito” (Culex pipiens) having 
attacked a slumbering traveller in the best bed-room of 
the best hotel in London, It is not that we call in 
question the existence of the galls, or of the winged-ants, 
or of the mosquito, or any of the concomitant circum- 
stances: these are indisputable, but, like the historical 
gray horse one always meets on London Bridge, they are 
facts that make no impression on our visual organs, and 
* Throughout this note I shall retain the name Lignicola for the Deyon- 
shire gall, although Dr. Mayr has given it to another species, 
