4708 Entomological Society. 



The President read the followiDg note: — 



On the Galls produced by Cynips Quercus-petioli. 



" When, at the last Meeting of the Society, I presented my observations upon 

 various galls from the Crimea, lately published in the ' Gardener's Chronicle,' I had 

 no opportunity of referring to the oak-galls which have been several times exhibited 

 to the Members under different names. 



" It is, however, most important that the name of the species should be determined ; 

 I therefore investigated the subject carefully, and am satisfied that I was correct in 

 the opinion I first gave. It may be remembered that when the galls, with the fly, 

 from Mr. Walcott, were laid before the Society by me, and also by Mr. Rich, I stated 

 they were identical with the Cynips Quercus-petioli of Linneus, but this opinion was 

 objected to by Mr. Newman, owing to the galls not being apparently produced from 

 the petioles. 



" On referring to Linneus's * Fauna Suecica,' p. 387, I find he writes of Cynips 

 Quercus-petioli, ' Habitat in Galla utrinque convexa inflata, petioli seu ramuli 

 Quercus,' showing that the galls are not confined to one spot, and he refers to Roesel's 

 Ins. App. t. 35, 36, which volume I had obtained of Mr. Janson at the last Meeting, 

 in order to exhibit the excellent plate of the galls there given, together with the 

 imago, which agrees well with the females bred by Mr. Walcott, at once identifying 

 the galls and insects which T exhibited last November with the Cynips Quercus-petioli 

 of Linneus, and likewise with Reaumur's fig. 7, pi. 41, vol. Hi., which evidently repre- 

 sents the galls of the same species of Cynips. 



" I would also observe that the ' Galle en pomme,'. represented in the same plate 

 by Reaumur, and formed by the Cynips Quercus-terminalis, is so totally different 

 from the galls of the C. Quercus-petioli in the internal structure, as well as in their 

 position on the twigs of the oak, that they must be the productions of very different 

 species. 



" Since the above memoranda were written I see Mr. Westwood has given, in the 

 * Gardener's Chronicle,' an Essay on the British Ink-Galls, with figures of the oak-gall 

 and the Cynips from Devon ; and I am glad to learn he intends to investigate still 

 further the galls of commerce. It is possible they may not be found so valuable, in a 

 commercial point of view, as they were formerly, owing to the galls being superseded 

 by metallic ingredients in the manufacture of ink ; nevertheless they may still be ser- 

 viceable in furnishing a permanent dye." 



Mr. Westwood said he had very recently found his specimens of the Cynips, which 

 he had determined to be the C. Quercus-petioli so long ago that the ink with which 

 the name was written on the label had faded. 



Duration of Life in the Honey-Bee. 

 Read, " Observations on the Honey-Bee, in continuation of the Prize Essay of the 

 Entomological Society for 1852 ;" by J. G. Desborough, Esq. 



Mr. Wollastons Collection of Madeira Insects. 

 Dr. Gray said it might be interesting to the Members to know that Mr. Wollaston 

 had transferred to the British Museum his collection of Madeira Insects. — J. W. D. 



