OYNIPS KOLLAEI. 113 



That at first the gall was very local there can be 

 no doubt, for we have the clearest evidence of its 

 gradual extension over Britain during the last thirty 

 years. On this point Dr. Jordan (E. M. M., viii, p. 51) 

 remarks of Kollari : " Although noticed by me in 

 Devon certainly for forty years at least (since we 

 used its galls as marbles when I was quite a child), 

 yet it did not reach Birmingham until 1860, when it 

 was first noticed by me in the town, a fact not to be 

 wondered at, considering how often its galls were 

 brought from the south by tourists ; it was not, how- 

 ever, until the autumn of 1866 that it was first seen 

 by me invading Birmingham, along the hedges on the 

 Worcestershire side ; the two streams have now met, 

 and G. Kollari is now found in both town and country." 

 That has practically been my own experience in Scot- 

 land, where it now extends into Sutherland shire. 



Various attempts have been made to utilise these 

 galls for ink-making purposes, but without any prac- 

 tical result, owing to the paucity of tannic acid they 

 contain as opposed to the Aleppo and other galls — 

 only some 17 as against over 50 per cent. The only 

 use made of them is for ornamenting fancy baskets, 

 fern cases, &c. 



That the species is injurious in many instances 

 there can be no doubt. It only frequents stub or 

 young oaks, not over three or four feet high. These, 

 when they appear in numbers in nurseries, they fright- 

 fully distort, and not infrequently render saleless. 



As parasites there have been recorded Torymus 

 regius = Devoniensis, Parfitt, and Megastigmus stig- 

 maticans, these two being not uncommonly bred from 

 them in this country; Decatoma sp. (Walker). Mr. 

 Fitch (Ent., vi, 243) bred from a small bunch of galls : 

 Orymrus punctiger, aEurytoma, aPteromalus, a Torymus 

 allied to inconstans, a " small black Hymenopteron 

 quite unknown to Mr. Walker," a " n. g. allied to 

 Entedon" Giraud bred Macrocentrus marginator, 

 Nees, from the galls. 



VOL. iv. 8 



