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The President doubted Mr. Curtis's conclusion, on the ground that 

 each individual gall was situate in the axil of a leaf, and never on a 

 petiole ; and he thought so great a botanist as Linneus would not 

 have been guilty of such an obvious misapplication of terms : he 

 therefore inclined to suppose that Linneus was unacquainted with the 

 species. At the December meeting Mr. Stainton read a letter from 

 Mr. Jordan, who claimed the gall as an old acquaintance, stating that 

 years previously it had been gathered in quantities at Lympstone, 

 near Exmouth, and employed in making ink. At the January meet- 

 ing Mr. Stainton exhibited a bunch of similar galls, gathered from an 

 oak at Exeter, and read a letter from the gentleman who sent them, 

 containing additional information, and showing that Mr. Westwood 

 had examined the perfect Cynips and decided it to be Cynips termi- 

 nalis. At the April meeting Mr. Curtis read a paper on the subject, 

 citing a number of authorities and reiterating the statement that the 

 insect was the Cynips Quercus-petioli of Linneus ; and Mr. Westwood 

 added, that he had decided the insect to be Cynips Quercus-petioli so 

 long ago that the ink with which the name was written had faded. 

 At the November meeting a note was read from Mr. Haliday, stating 

 that the Cynips could not be identified as either a Linnean or Fabri- 

 cian species, but was the Cynips lignicola of Hartig, and the only 

 one of that group to which the ink-gall belongs that has occurred so 

 far North as England, or even as Northern Germany. Lastly, at the 

 December meeting, an extract from the 'Gardener's Chronicle' was 

 read, in which the author restores the name of Quercus-petioli : his 

 statements as regard the insect are somewhat conflicting; — that it 

 kills oak trees at Weston-super-Mare ; that it keeps the oak trees in 

 plantations in a dwarf state ; and that it is of very recent origin : 

 when we consider the slow growth of the oak, the first observation, 

 which certainly implies a long-continued observation of the gall, seems 

 at variance with the last. After smiling at these clashing decisions, 

 all of them apparently considered final by their enunciators, let us 

 pause for a moment on the insect itself: we have abundant evidence 

 before us of the production, in immense quantities, and in our own 

 country, of an ink-gall the properties of which have been tested and 

 found excellent. What a subject for a prize essay is here ! What a 

 theme for investigation ! It is to be hoped that another year will not 

 pass away without the publication of good figures, a good description 

 of the insect and its habitation, a careful investigation of its geo- 

 graphical range, and at least an attempt to prove its value as an article 

 of commerce : it is within the range of possibility, even of proba- 



