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THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 171 
Care should be taken to have the receptacle very dry, and not 
to cause the condensation of vapour inside by leaving it in 
the sun. 
When we are breeding from galls ‘produced by sawflies 
(Tenthredinidz), which occur almost exclusively on various 
species of willows, or some gall-gnats (Cecidomyide), we 
must have a small quantity of baked earth in the bottom of 
the jar, as their transformations are subterranean. Great care 
is necessary in breeding the various insects from galls, because 
the habits of some of the Cynipide, Chalcidide, Ichnen- 
monidzx, &c.,—all of which are freely bred from galls,—are 
such that they may very easily be introduced into the galli- 
pot, and on their emergence of course are labelled as 
inhabitants of the galls themselves: for instance, how easy to 
introduce some half-dozen Aphides (plant-lice), which probably 
each contain an Allotria (Cynipida) or Aphidius (Ichneu- 
monidz); then, again, there are the numerous Chalcids and 
Ichneumons, which are parasitic on leaf-mining Diptera, 
Hymenoptera, and Lepidoptera; the leaf-miners themselves 
are also very liable to cause confusion; and when we 
remember that Mr. Walker bred examples of seventy-five 
different species (hundreds of specimens of some) from 
one species of gall in one year,—and these belonging to 
seven orders of insects, besides Arachnida and Acari,—it is 
evident the breeder of gall-flies (by this I mean, here, the 
different insects inhabiting galls) will find quite enough to 
occupy his attention without the interlopers. 
After we breed the insects, and when we perhaps see the 
glasses of some twenty gallipots swarming with flies, we want 
to know how to preserve them well and quickly: this will 
best be accomplished by procuring a small basin of boiling 
water, and by holding the glass some little distance above, 
and giving it a tap, the greater part of the insects will fall or 
jump into the water with their wings and legs extended ; 
then collect them on small pieces of paper—thick blotting, 1 
use—and pull their antennae, wings, legs, &c., out, as best 
suited for examination, and so leave them for a day, when the 
dried insects will fly off the paper at the least touch from a 
small knife or even pin; they may then be arranged on cut 
pieces of card-board (not too thick) with gum tragacanth, and 
so pinned,—separate species on separate slips; this is not 
