Report of the State Entomologist 309 



If we may accept the probable determination of Dr. Riley, the 

 curious object observed must have been the gall of the fly, containing 

 its nearly matured larva. Its remarkable bounds of nearly six inches 

 in height (?) would be the result of the larva bending its body in an 

 arched form and then by a strong muscular action suddenly throwing 

 itself into a reverse position. It is quite probable that this gall is 

 identical with that described in Science Gossip for December, 1867, 

 in a communication from Ventnor, Isle of Wight, quoted by Mr. 

 Charles R Dodge in Field and Forest, ii, p. 55, as follows: 



" The writer describes the ' jumping seed ' as a * small excrescence ; 

 which had been taken from a hawthorn ; it was about the sixth of an 

 inch in length, pear-shaped, and in size resembled a grape or raisin 

 stone. The specimen had been seen to jerk or leap nearly an inch 

 from a given point, though while in his possession it had not shown 

 such activity, leaping only a third or a quarter of that distance. On 

 opening the case, it was found to contain a whitish maggot, with a 

 small, yellowish, scaly head, the body bent into a semicircle, and the 

 tail-end slightly flattened. It had no legs, but the shining skin was 

 deeply corrugated, or thrown into folds, which appeared to serve in 

 some degree as limbs." 



If the above description of the larva is approximately correct, it 

 could not have been a Cecidomyia. 



Quite a number of "jumping galls" and "jumping seeds" are 

 known to- science. Of the former, one of the most interesting is a 

 species occurring as a small globular body of about the size of a 

 mustard seed, formed on the un4er side of leaves of Quercus obtusifolia, 

 Q. macrocarpa, and Q. alba, in California, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, 

 Michigan, and less frequently eastward. Sometimes a thousand of 

 these galls are found on a single leaf. "The gall drops in large 

 quantities to the ground, and the insect within can make it bound 

 wenty times its own length, the ground under an infested tree being 

 sometimes fairly alive with the mysterious moving bodies. The noise 

 made by them often resembles the pattering of rain. The motion is 

 imparted by the insect in the pupa, and not in the larva state." 

 (Riley: American Naturalist, x., p. 218). The insect forming the above 

 gall is known scientifically as Neuroterus saltatorius (H. Edwards). 



Mr. Ashmead has published an account of another of these curious 

 forms, which he has named Andricus saltatus {Trans. Amer. Entomolog. 

 Sac, xiv., 1887, p. 142). Two or three of the galls are formed on the 

 bud-axils of the blue-jack oak (Quercus cinerea) in early spring, in 

 Florida. " It appears the last of March, and when first taken from 

 the tree and for several weeks thereafter, it has the power of jumping, 



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