72 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



ping an egg along with a minute drop of poison 

 into each punctiire. Until the following spring 

 these eggs always lie dormant, as in many other 

 such cases ; for Dr. Fitch is altogether wrong in 

 asserting that there are two distinct broods of 

 "Wool-sower Gall-flies every year, generating 

 two distinct sets of galls.* We have examined 

 hundreds of these galls at all seasons of the 

 year ; and never yet did we find one at a later 

 period than the end of July, that was not bored 

 up, emptjr and untenanted. In fact, it is not 

 often that they remain on the twigs through the 

 winter; for when ripe they are attached so very 

 slightly to the twig upon which they gi'ow, that 

 they can readily be slipped up and down like 

 the beads of a rosary, and the least lateral jerk 

 displaces them entirely. 



The Leafy Oak-gall. "^ 



(Quereus frondosa? Bassett.)t 

 This gall, the immature stage of which we 

 herewith present a drawing (Fig. 46 «), has 



[Fig. 46.] 



Goloi' — Gi'een . 



for many years been a puzzle to us ; and even 

 now its history is not yet completely developed, 



* Hew York Reports, Vol. U, § 31o. 



t We are not quite sure that our gall is iilentical with the 

 one described by Mr. Bassett under the above name; but we 

 incline to believe that it is. The descriptions of gall-making 

 insects that this author has published are generally pretty 

 full, accurate and reliable; but most of the notices that he 

 gives of the galls themselves are curt, indettnite and unsatis- 

 factory to a most distressing extent. In this particular case 

 he does not vouchsafe to tell us upon liow many specimens — 

 whether one or one hundred— his description is based; he 

 does not s.a^ one word as to the size of the gall; he overlooks 

 the fact of Its often containing more than one cell; he omits 

 the fact of the matured cells dropping to the ground; and he 

 describes his gall as "a cone-like l)odj', covered wlien 

 green, and often when dry, with a dense rose-like cluster of 

 imperfectly developed leaves;"' after which he goes on to 

 speak of the cell , Any one not familiar with this gentle- 

 man's style would suppose that he was talking of a solid con- 

 ical gal], like the Pine-cone Willow-gall (Vol. I, JbMg. 82), 

 with a number of leaves growing out of it. Tlie best tiiat we 

 can do, under the circumstances, is to guess that he is say- 

 ing one thing and meaning another thing. But as we are not 

 Yankees, like Mr. Bassett, who can be certain that we are 



GUESSING EIGHT ? 



though we have examined hundreds of speci- 

 mens of it. AVheu mature it often attains a 

 diameter of two and a quarter inches, and the 

 modified leaves of which it is composed are then 

 much longer and proportionally much wider 

 than they are at first, so that instead of being 

 what the botanists term "lanceolate" they be- 

 come " oval," with their tips usualh'' acute, and 

 occasionally with a more or less well-developed 

 acute tooth projecting from one side of the leaf. 

 Just as, iu the case of the Pine-cone Willow- 

 gall,* although the leaves of the willow upon 

 which it grows are always sharply toothed upon 

 their edges, those of the gall itself are never 

 toothed at all, so in the case of this Leafy Oak- 

 gall the leaves of which it is composed are 

 never roundly niany-lobed, as are those of the 

 diflferent oaks upon which it occurs. They are 

 further anomalous by very generally lacking 

 the rib vein found in the normal leaves of all 

 oaks. So singular very frequently is the influ- 

 ence of the gall-making insect upon the vegeta- 

 tion of the plant which it attacks ! 



In a mature Leafy Oak-gall which we now 

 have before us, some of the leaves of which it is 

 composed are nearly one and a half inch long 

 by half an inch wide ; and those that are smaller 

 are proportioned nearly in the same way. The 

 gall is developed after the summer growth of 

 the tree is completed; and the axillary bud, 

 which otherwise would not burst until the 

 spring following, is forced, by the punctures of 

 the Gall-fly, to develop prematurely in the re- 

 markable manner illustrated above. Such galls 

 as are of small size contai.i but a single cell 

 (Fig. 46 6), which though its shell is thin is tol- 

 erably hard and difficult to crush — hut the larger 

 ones often cover three, four or five such cells; 

 inside this cell reposes the larva, as shown in 

 the figure, and the characters of the larva indi- 

 cate it unmistakably to be that of some Gall-fly 

 or other, although it has not as yet been reared 

 by any oho to the perfect fly state. By parting 

 the leaves of the gall, the tip of the greenish 

 white cell may be seen imbedded among them; 

 and singular to relate, about the middle of the 

 autumn, when the gall becomes mature, the 

 cells are gradnally disengaged from their leafy 

 matri.x and drop to the ground, where no doubt 

 the larva will pass the winter more agreeably 

 among the masses of dead leaves which accu- 

 mulate iu such situations, than it would do if 

 it were exposed aloft to the storm)' blasts and the 

 cold driving sleets of the dead season of the 

 year. In all probability the future Gall-fly bursts 

 forth from its snug reti'eat some time in the fol- 



«See Ajier. Ent. I, p. 105, Fig. 82. 



