210 [February, 
the loeality of the isolated egg. Subsequently, the skin of the rib thus operated 
upon bursts and discloses a minute egg-shaped or kidney-shaped half solid gall, 
which is at first green, then yellow, and, when ripe, speckled with red or brown 
spots. Some oval specimens are close imitations of miniature birds’ ege’s. From 
August to October these monothalamous galls ripen, and then drop out of their 
thin skinny valves. Of course, the name of the insect refers to the distant resem- 
blance of its larval home to an oyster. The larva feeds on the soft inner pulp of 
the gall, and its full-fed state is generally attained soon after the fall of the gall. 
A large number of hybernated galls shaken from oaks, near Shirley (6th 
September, 1868), into an inverted umbrella, produced a few females in the first 
and second week of October following; several of the remaining larvze hybernated 
and cut out their way as perfect insects (? ) in May and June, 1869. The other sex I 
have not yet bred. After being left by the insect the gall is reduced to a mere 
shell of a thin, semi-transparent, papery substance. 
The geographical range of this Newroterus seems to be very extensive, as it 
accommodates itself to Q. pedunculata, sessiliflora, pubescens, and probably to other 
oaks as well. It has been recorded from Nassau, Halle, Berlin, Freiberg, Zwickau, - 
Kaplitz, Vienna, &c., and I have collected its gall in several localities in the Black 
Forest and in the Swiss Jura. Of its distribution over Great Britain I amat | 
present profoundly ignorant.—ALBERT Mutier, South Norwood, S.E., December — 
16th, 1870. | 
Note on an oak-gall.—At page 39 of your Magazine for July last, Mr. Miller 
has stated that I call a certain unformed swelling of the ribs of the oak-leaf the 
kidney-shaped gall. This is an error. The gall is not kidney-shaped, but the case © 
it contains being reniform it suggested to me the name of kidney gall. 
At page 157, December, 1870, Mr. Miller has corrected his error at my 
request, but in such a manner as to give the idea that I had changed the name, 
which I trust I now have shown is not the case. Such distinctive names as this 
I have found a great convenience in the absence of a knowledge of the insects ; but 
scarcely intended them for publication.—H. W. Kipp, Godalming, January 10th, 
1871. 
Erroneous record of the capture of Deilephila livornica in Perthshire.—I regret 
to say that the notice of D. livornica in Perthshire (p. 139) is erroneous. I was 
told, on what I believed good authority, that the insect was livornica; but, having 
lately had an opportunity of seeing the specimen, I find it is only galii. In the 
same collection I noticed Cucullia chamomille, a species which I think has not — 
previously been taken here. —F. Bucuanan Wuits, Perth, December 20th, 1870. 
A life-history of Ptilophora plumigera.—I am glad to take this opportunity of | 
acknowledging my obligation to the Rey. Bernard Smith, for his kindness in fur- 
nishing me, from time to time, with a great variety of subjects for my pencil, as — 
well as for the repeated supply of eggs of plumigera, in 1869 and 1870, by means 
of which I have been enabled to work out the transformations of this rare and local — 
species. 
The eggs are laid in November, either singly, or in little groups of two or three 
together, on the young brown shoots of Acer campestie, to which they assimilate 
