14 BRITISH GALLS 



Notes on Collecting and Preserving Qalls 



The majority of galls may be preserved easily in 

 the dried state. They should be kept in a series of 

 glass-topped boxes. Great care must be taken to dry 

 them thoroughly before putting them away, and to see 

 that they are not infested with herbarium pests. It is 

 advisable to put a little naphthaline in each box. The 

 collection should be supplemented with coloured drawings 

 of the galls and their inhabitants, and with photographs. 

 A notebook should always be carried by the cecidologist in 

 the field, and constantly used. The necessity for continuous 

 observation and patient jotting down of detail cannot be too 

 strongly insisted upon. If the galls are collected at the 

 right season, there should not be much difficulty in breeding 

 out Hymenoptera and Diptera. A glazed cabinet will be 

 necessary for the insects. Mites and eelworms may be 

 preserved in alcohol in test-tubes. 



Every specimen should be carefully labelled. Do not 

 adopt the plan of simply affixing a number to the specimen 

 and keeping the particulars posted up in the notebooks. 

 Valuable collections, the work of a lifetime, have been 

 either disposed of for a mere song or thrown away because 

 the notebooks containing the keys to them had been lost. 



To convey an idea of the size of galls of very variable 

 dimensions we allude to them as being of the size of a pea, 

 walnut, or other familiar object. This is a convenient plan, 

 and I have followed it for such galls in this book, but I am 

 fully aware that it is not a scientific one. It is certainly 

 better that all measurements be given in millimetres or 

 centimetres, as the case may be. For this purpose the most 

 convenient, and at the same time the cheapest measuring 

 instrument that I know of is a little clockmaker's gauge 

 made by Boley of Esslingen.* It is a slide gauge, and 

 reads with a vernier up to o-i mm. — a sufficiency of 



• It may be had from Messrs. Grimshawand Baxter, 33-37, Goswell 

 Road, Clerkenwell, London, E.G. Price js. 



