578 Rev. M. J. Berkeley m a Gall gathered in Cuba 



culum is very singular*: but on these points I am happy to give an ex- 

 tract from a letter of Mr. MacLeay, which appears to me extremely in- 

 teresting. 



" I have examined the production of the Ochnaceous leaf under the micro- 

 scope, and am convinced with you that it is the work of an insect, but I have 

 not been so successful as you in discovering this insect. On observing, how- 

 ever, the structure of the nidus, I conceive it to be much more analogous to 

 that of some of the woody galls than to the cocoons figured by Curtis in the 

 paper to which you have referred in the Zoological Transactions. The first 

 cocoon figured as that of a Melolonthidous insect is that of a whole Lepidopte- 

 rous genus very common in America and New Holland. I have plenty of 

 specimens collected by myself. The second figured by Curtis, and which is 

 so like a gall, is more new to me ; but I know several Lepidopterous cocoons 

 analogous to it which appear to be galls, or rather productions of the tree to 

 which they are attached. I have bred the insects, however, frequently, and 

 found that the substance of these pseudo-galls is not vegetable but animal ; 

 that is, the caterpillar composes them of a sort of mason-work of its ex- 

 crement, coated inside and out with a varnished silk or silky varnish. I 

 have little doubt that this is the composition of the cocoons figured by Curtis, 

 but who was not aware of the fact from never having had an opportunity of 

 investigating the oeconomy of these insects in their native country. Cocoons 

 necessarily have opercula, or at least a place more easy of exit than their 

 general substance will allow. So has the production on the Ochnaceous leaf, 

 but its structure is vegetable, and I am therefore inclined to consider it a true 

 gall, although I know no other instance of a gall with an operculum. The 

 question then is, whether the larva you found has feet or not ; if it has, the 

 larva is probably Lepidopterous, which would be very singular. If it has not, 

 the larva is probably Hymenopterous, allied to the Diplolepidce. Upon the 

 whole I consider it to be a gall most likely made by an Hymenopterous in- 

 sect." 



* It is clear that the gall described and figured by Reaumur {Mem. pour servir d. I'Hist. Nat. des 

 Insectes, torn. iii. p. 448. pi. 39. figg. 1 — 4), quoted by Mr. Curtis in Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. i. p. 307, has 

 not an operculum ; for he distinctly says, that before it spins its cocoon it pierces a hole in the gall ; 

 and the figure indeed shows the same tolerably well. 



