GALL MLTES. 353 



CAS|": were hatched, a fact which there is no denying is in' favour of the 

 maternal parent being a differently formed animal, with a more 

 active disposition, and better means of indulging it. 



The mischief that these creatures do to plants is very consider 

 able. As already said, they attack them in two different ways; 

 one, through the bud, the other through the leaves ; of the two the 

 former seems the most injurious. In spring the buds attacked are 

 seen to languish and decay, or to assume a rounded swollen form 

 without pushing out ; on tearing a bud open hundreds of minute 

 semi-transparent moving things may, by the help of a lens, be seen 

 between the leaflets ; these are the Phytopti, but it takes a good 

 glass to see them at all. The surface of the leaflets on which they 

 are scattered has a moist, raw-like appearance, in fact the Phytopti 

 have browsed on it until they have flayed it to the quick. It is 

 unnecessary to say that these buds produce nothing. When it is 

 the leaves that are attacked, the excrescences or galls of various 

 kinds, of which we have above spoken, are formed upon them. 

 Sometimes the Phytopti are to be found in great numbers inside, 

 and, as already said, in that case the inner surface is free from 

 hairs, unless, perhaps, a few stumps, and looks raw like a galled 

 wound, like the surface of the leaflets in the bud; but more 

 frequently no Phytopti are found in these galls, or, perhaps, it 

 would be more correct to say that in some kinds of plants they 

 are found commonly enough, in others very rarely indeed, and 

 when not present the inside is grown up with hairs. 



There remains to say a word as to the nomenclature of these 

 creatures. The galls themselves have received the general 

 denomination of Acarocecidium. Then the different kinds have 

 received different generic names, besides the old botanical names 

 of Phyllerium and Erineum, which have been preserved. As, so 

 far as we yet know, no other genus of mite than Phytoptus is en- 

 gaged in the production of these galls, we do not propose to follow 

 this nomenclature, further than to note the names when they occur. 

 For us they are all galls of Phytopti, and nothing more. 



