tHE ENTOMOLOGiSt. 429 



I have not met with such an instance. Will correspondents 

 kindly favour me with their experience ? 



Fungus on Pear-trees. — The curious malady which is 

 described as injuring the pear-trees at Saffron Walden is the 

 result of a parasitic fungus, named Roestelia cancellata. The 

 Rev. M.J. Berkeley, to whom the question has been referred, 

 recommends picking off the infected leaves and burning 

 them, — a slow and most wearisome process ; but I know of 

 none better or so effectual. I have this year received speci- 

 mens of the same genus of fungus on the twigs, leaves and 

 fruit of the whitethorn ; on the leaves and fruit of the medlar; 

 and on the fruit of the mountain ash. A valued correspondent 

 has remarked, that the ravages of this genus of Fungi seem 

 confined to Rosaceous plants. 1 am well aware that this 

 subject does not strictly come within the scope of the * Ento- 

 mologist,' but the specimens having been sent me under the 

 impression that they were the work of an insect, I could not 

 hesitate to notice them. The effect of this parasite on the 

 whitethorn is very curious : it causes the twigs to swell and 

 curve, and assume. the appearance of the larvae of Lepidoptera 

 and other objects. Jt is difficult to conceive any growth 

 more grotesque than some of these fungus-galls, which I 

 gathered this year in the neighbourhood of Croydon. 



Squirrels eating the Woody galls of the Oak. — Mr. H. B. 

 Murray informs the readers of the * Field' that the galls in 

 question — which are produced by Cynips lignicola, as I 

 pointed out many years ago in the 'Zoologist' — are opened 

 by squirrels, and not by titmice, as I always supposed. He 

 says : — " I have myself seen the ground under the oak-tree 

 strewn with the fragments of these galls, and there could be 

 no doubt of squirrels being the operators, as they were seen 

 in the act." It would have been rather more satisfactory had 

 Mr. Murray been able to write that he himself had seen 

 the squirrels eating these galls, instead of saying " they were 

 seen''^ in the act; the expression has a want of precision 

 that the writer might possibly be able to remove. I rather 

 infer that he has not himself seen them. I have examined 

 most critically hundreds of these galls at Croham Hurst, near 

 Croydon, with the express object of ascertaining what crea- 

 ture really did attack them ; and although there are evident 

 marks, as of the beak of a bird, in many of them, and 



