3460 The Zoologist— Makch, 1873. 



p. ix., and ' Zoologist,' 1872, p. 3036), I was inclined to attribute them 

 probably to the action of a mite, belonging perhaps to the genus Phytoptus. 



"In reference to this question, my valued correspondent, Dr. Fr. 

 Thomas, to whom I had communicated the said note, has since expressed 

 the opinion that it will have to be tested by further observations, whether 

 the gall owes its origin to a mite, and that he doubts it (Giebel's Zeitschr. 

 f. d. ges. Naturwissensch. 1872, p. 475). 



" I am quite of the same opinion as my learned friend, that the matter 

 requires further elucidation, but residents in the East can best solve the 

 riddle, either by careful investigations on the spot, or by the transmission 

 of materials to Europe. 



" This seems the proper place to allude to the fact that an alUed, if not 

 identical creature, attacks the leaves of cinnamon bushes in Ceylon. John 

 Nietner has placed on record that in the neighbourhood of Colombo, where 

 there exist old Dutch plantations of cinnamon bushes, 6000 to 8000 acres 

 in extent, the bushes often form a single, monstrous, bxngled mass, their 

 leaves being curled up by numerous swellings of the size of peas or beans. 

 The acorn-shaped fruits of the same plant are often similarly affected, 

 swelling up until they assume the size and colour of a walnut. Nietner 

 puts the question whetlier these excrescences might not be the work of a 

 Cynips ; but as he subsequently compares them to the bulged-out leaves of 

 some species of Ribes, inhabited by Aphidte, we must leave his former 

 supposition out of consideration (Stettin Ent. Zeitung, 1857, p. 39). 



"In a letter which I have since received from Dr. Thomas, this gentle- 

 man expresses his supposition that the Bombay excrescences may be 

 produced by one of the Psyllodes. If we bear in mind what Nietner says of 

 the Singalese form. Dr. Thomas's opinion undoubtedly becomes entitled to 

 much consideration, and may eventually turn out to be founded in fact. 

 For my own part I prefer to suspend my judgment until fresh materials 

 from the East shall have enabled me to examine the excrescences in 

 question, as well as their inhabitants, more in detail." 



The Rev. Mr. Eaton stated that he had had a specimen of a Trorabidium 

 given to him, which had been taken by Mr. Benjamin Lee Smith, in Sep- 

 tember last, at Spitzbergen. ^ 



Papers read, ^c. 

 "On the Hydroptilidee, a Family of the Trichoptera," by the Rev. A. E. 



Eaton, M.A. 



" A Monographic List of the Species of Gasteracantha or Crab-Spiders, 

 with descriptions of new species, &c.," by Arthur G. Butler, F.L.S., 

 F.Z.S., &c. 



