ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST. 



333 



mivining IG fcalls, on October 15th, 1805, I obtained live living 

 C. q. aciculata. Thus it results that q. aciculata generates 

 sometimes q. aciculata and soraeUmcs q spongifca. 



Lest it should be supposed that there was any reasonable 

 probability of this small blaek oali having been attacked by 

 any otiier gall-lly producing upon black oaks the Q. spong\/ica 

 gall besides tliose that I placed on it myself in the preceding 

 autiinm, it is proper to add here that it grew on the Bluffs, 

 where black oaks are very scarce, and that I am confident 

 that there is not another black oak within a quarter of a mile 

 of it. So rare, moreover, are the galls Q. spongifica upon the 

 Bluirs, that ill the course of six years' careful observation 



Ihavi 1> iHiiir. 1 III, re thi'ee or four black oaks bearing 



these - I .1 i . . . I lien there were only fi-om 3 to 6 on a 



tree;\\( ihly bottom laud, which awarms with 



black. Ill /,, . J ,11- are comparatively quite common. 



If, liinv.vir. we clioiise to believe that the very same insect 

 that ijroduces tlie Q. inanis gall also produces the Q. spongifica 

 gall, Ihen the above mode of reasoning will not apply with 

 such force; lor the Q. inanis gall, and the red oak mi which 

 it grows, are nearly as common on the Bluff as the Q. spong- 

 ifica gall, and the black oak ou which it grows, are on the 

 bottom land. Still, even upon this hypothesis, it is exceed- 

 ingly improbable that Cynipsq. inanis should have attacked 

 this particular small black oak in the spring of 18«4s for, 1st, 

 I know tliat this tree bore no oak-apples for many years pre- 

 vious to 181)3; 2nd, there were no red oaks growing anywhere 

 within two or three hundred yards of it, the few oaks that 

 grew near it being citlier white oak or bur oak, which never 

 produce either the Q spongijlca or the"Q. inanis gall; 3rd, 1 

 noticed that, in the spring of 18ti6, this very same small black 

 oak swanned again with the Q spongifica gall, almost as 

 abundantly as in the spring of 1885. Doubtless these galls 

 had been generated by gall-flies that escaped from some of 

 the galls before I harvested them on Jane 5th, 1805, or from 

 green galls that had previously fallen off the tiee on to the 

 groimd, as they will vei'y often do in very great numbers 

 when thex'e is a high wind blowing, and be cai'ried along the 

 surface of the groimd for himdreds of yards by the action of 

 the wind; 4th, if we assume that the two galls that produced 

 C. q. spongifica June llth and 14th, 1865, had been generated 

 by C. q. inanis, and that only the Ave galls that produced C. 

 q. aciculata October 15th, 1SC5, had been generated by the C. 

 q. aciculata that I placed on the small black oak in the au- 

 tumn of 1801, how does it come about that the Q. spongifica 

 gall is so very rare on those very Blufl's where the Q inanis 

 gall is so common? Surely if C. i;. inanis, bred from red 

 oak, is capable of generating the Q spongifica' ga\l on black 

 oak, the Q. spongifica gaM. ought to be as numerous on the 

 Blufl's, in proportion to the number of black oaks growing 

 there, as it is on the sandy bottom laud, whereas it is no such 

 thing. 5th, on the hypothesis of C. q. inanis generating Q. 

 spongifica galls, there again recurs the inevitable question, 

 ' ' Why does C. q. inanis, if it is speciUcally identical with C. 

 q. spongifica, produce swarms of an autumnal dimorphous ^i 

 —C q. aciculata — on the black oak, and none at all on the 

 red oak?" Or shall we take refuge in the anomalous hy- 

 pothesis that one and the same bise.vual species, variously 

 known as C. 17. spongifica S 9 and C. q. inanis (f 9, produces 

 two such entirely different galls as Q. spongifica and Q. inanis 

 upon black oak and red oak respectively, the same type of 

 gall being always found upon the same species of oak; and 

 that a distinct agaraons species— C. q. aciculata 5— generates 

 upon the black oak, galls which are utterly undistinguishable 

 from those of C. q. spongifica upon the same oak, and which 

 occur upon the same oak promiscuously iiiterraUed with these 

 last galls in scores of different localities, and yet th^^t this 

 agamous species never uiuler any clrcuni.-itances ^'enerates 

 anygalls at all— M i,. ill' r III III" i; ,. ....u .. <; 1 >. |., ,,i .iTilieQ. 



inanis ty^e — ii| i;' 1 ii,'iilcan 



only oppose \\[i , , 1. . li • of all 



kinds, I considi I 1- ;. Mi-I. ,; , ...m; n I, , ;li:it the 



characters of the gull depend entir.ly ii|>.>n the iii.-^ect that 

 makes it, and in no wise upon the plant, or the particular 



part of the plant, inmi which it grows. Consequently, I 

 could as n :i,lil-. l,. Ii, 1 ilial ,i cow could produce .-soinetimes 

 acalfiiiiil i, ; :i nil, as that Cynips '/. i»i<"iis could 



produce .-'I'. , ■ i/.s ;rall upon Ued Oak, and suiiie- 



tiniesa ti V : ..,. uull ,111 IllackOak. If it pnidm-.ed any 



gall at all upon Black Oak, instead of upon Ked Oak which 

 is its normal habitat, it would inevitably, in ray opinion, 

 [iroducc a gall having all the characters of the Q. inanis gall 

 that is commonly found upon Red Oak. 



I am well aware that much of the above reasoning will lack 

 its due weight with the reader, because he has not, as 1 have, 

 watched particular trees in a grove of niack Oak.'! Bwarming 

 with oak-apples for year afl. 1 in. wliiii ili- m -. lii!,>i ing 

 trees bear none at all, or on 1;, 1 1 , ^ i- m u,-. 



and because he has never s, , 1 1 1 v^ iili 



astonishment, that even a pai i .. m!,;i i„uil1i ,11 iimhi uhir 

 tree will bear numerous oak-iipples lor year :iltrr year, wliile 

 the rest of the tree will bear none at all . Hence I have de- 

 rived a profound conviction that the gall-flies that make these 

 oak-apples, although they have full-sized wings, yetscarcely 

 ever use them; whereas persons who are unaciiiiaiiited with 

 these insects would naturally suppose that they lly aljout the 

 wdods as freely as a bee or a butterfly . Out of the thuiisamLs 

 that 1 have bred in my oflice,I never knew a single individual , 

 whether of the vernal or of the autumnal tyiie, to take wing 

 at all; and only on one or two occasions, when I have been 

 placing them upon oaks to e.xiieriment on the laws of their 

 reproduction, have I seen one of them take wing, and then it 

 would only fly a yard or two. 



On .June llth, 1805, I gathered the four galls off the large 

 gall-bearing Black Oak previously referred to. From these 

 I bred no q spongifica at all; but on cutting into them on 

 October 15th, 1865, I obtained therefrom three living C q. 

 aciculata. 



On October IBth , 1805, having now in my possession two 

 lots of living and lively q. aciculata, one consisting of 5 S 

 and the other of 3 9 , that I knew to be generated by q. acicu- 

 lata of the preceding season, I determined to see whether 

 they woidd all or any of them continue to generate q. acicrtlata 

 in the succeeding season, or whether, as had been the case 

 with two of their predecessoi-s, they would revert one or more 

 of them to q. spongifica. I therefore placed them, each lot 

 by itself, on two fresh isolated black oaks, that I knew to 

 have not been previously infested by these galls, for several 

 years back at all events. 



On May 31st, 1866, T gathered off one of these two black 

 oaks, upon which I had colonized the 5 q. aciculata in the 

 preceding autumn, 5 Q. spongifica gsMs, four of them badly 

 eaten by lepidoptcrons larva;, and only one in a perfect 

 state. They were at this date too young and immature to 

 gather with safety, but I feared to leave them longer on the 

 tree on account of the caterpillars, which will very frequcnly 

 eat away all the sponge and starve out the larva in the cen- 

 tral ceU. From this Ini ,il .', u'alls, .i;,ii. lalnl l.\ .'. c. .,. ,ii/r!i- 

 lata in the in-eceiliirj- lalninn, hIiu'Ii .""i c ■;. ,u>,ul„l,i had 

 themselves been j^'cikm .ii- <! in ili,- .mina .1 iiai [ire- 

 ceding by the 8 C. <;. ,u i, <il.il,! Ilmt I ha, I ,ail,,iii/i ,1 upon 



another isolated black cik, 1 bred, on tin' 1 lib and 17th of the 

 ensuing June, 2 Cijnips q. spongifica Q . The remaining 3 

 galls produced nothing. 



The other isolated Black Oak, upon which I had cohnir/.ed 

 the 3 9. aciculata in the preceding autumn, bore 2 Q. spongifica 

 galls; but they wei-e so high up on the tree, and placid so 

 near the e.^trcmity of a long slender bough, that 1 was unable 

 to harvest them. I was the more unwilling to expend time, 

 trouble or money on this account, as I saw that one of them 

 at all events, and perhaps both, were very badly eaten by 

 caterpillars 



Thegeiar , 1 ■ - all , .1 1 1,. ,i!...m . hi, h hi -, as the reader 



wdlperc, a. I. I lormof this 



Cynips !> 1-.: ; 1 1 \ c rual form. 



Ihavclrii-l iii:iii_. II iiv I,. 1, . 1:.! an, :, I - -nine of which 



resulted successfully, but ino.sl of tlieniumnccessfidly, some- 

 times from the nefarious propensity of a great variety of 



