April, 1914.] 
Unreported Cecidia from Connecticut. 
289 
SOME UNREPORTED CECIDIA FROM CONNECTICUT 
B. W. Wells 
Thru the winter of 1912-1913 and the summer of 1913, in pre¬ 
paring for some work on abnormally developed plant parts, the 
writer made a collection of insect galls in the eastern highland 
region of Connecticut. Most of the field work was done in the 
town of Mansfield in the vicinity of Storrs and Spring Hill. The 
extreme northern part of the eastern half of the state was visited 
a few times as well as the southern portion bordering on Long 
Island Sound. In the course of eleven months residence in the 
eastern Connecticut region, 204 galls were found, 22 of which are 
believed to be as yet unreported in the United States. 
The object of the present paper is thus to present descriptions 
and illustrations of some heretofore undescribed cecidia pro¬ 
duced by insects and mites in the eastern Connecticut highland 
region. A bibliography of the more important literature con¬ 
sulted, is appended. 
The writer wishes to express his appreciation of valuable 
assistance rendered by Mr. Billings T. Avery of Ledvard, Conn, 
who not only materially assisted in enlarging the collection of 
previously described galls but found a number of the new ones 
described in the present paper. 
It is self evident that such a report as the present one in which 
the galls only are adequately described, is an imperfect report. 
Yet, a list of these newly discovered definite hypertrophies and 
hyperplasies of plant parts should be set forth as a basis for future 
work, in which the whole of the subject entomological as well as 
botanical may be elucidated. Such a paper as the present one 
may perhaps act as a stimulus to the collection of cecidia by show¬ 
ing the unworked condition of the field. The animal induced 
pathologic structures developed on plant parts have not been col¬ 
lected with any degree of completeness; and no full and extended 
systematic studies have been made of those collected in America. 
Careful search in any locality, particularly among herbaceous 
plants is bound to bring to light some little known or entirely new 
cecidia. 
The writer has left the matter of naming the causal organisms 
to future workers, believing that specific names should be origin¬ 
ated by the first describer of the mite or insect concerned. The 
custom on the part of some of applying a specific name to an in¬ 
sect or mite merely on the basis of the intimately associated gall, 
is to be deplored. New names of gall producing forms should 
appear only with adequate descriptions of the arthropods con¬ 
cerned. 
