Kinsey: The Genus Neuroterus 123 
lationship being more apparent in the males than in the 
females. No other American species is known in the group 
Neospathegaster, and while it is not wholly desirable from 
the standpoint of convenience to recognize a subgenus for 
one species, further consideration of relationships leads to 
the present arrangement. 
This species has hitherto been known only from two vari- 
eties. The published data have recorded the initial growth 
of the galls in the fall, with the insect maturing rapidly in 
the spring and emerging by the time the oak leaves are fully 
expanded, in April or May in New England. Such data 
almost thruout Cynipidse apply to agamic generations, and 
it is a surprise to find a bisexual generation occurring over 
the winter. Is it possible that here is an instance where two 
bisexual generations, living in different galls, with different 
insects, alternate in a year? Such a simple case may be 
expected in the family if heterogeny is really only an extreme 
development of seasonal dimorphism. Or does this species 
have a bisexual winter generation, alternating with an agamic 
form which comes in the spring? Such cases are rare and 
not well established in this family. With our available data, 
I can have no preference for either theory ; the solution prob- 
ably must come thru experimental breeding of successive gen- 
erations. Since this is the only species known in the subgenus, 
and since the subgenus is very distinct in morphologic and 
physiologic respects, it will be of unusual importance to dis- 
cover its life-history. Dr. Patterson has discovered a bud 
gall, ocularis, and a bark gall, cerinus, which varieties are also 
bisexual, but he states that these galls are not to be detected 
until late February or January, the insects emerging in 
March. 
The known varieties of the species occur on oaks of both 
the white and the chestnut groups, and have been taken over 
the extremes of the wooded parts of eastern North America, 
making it likely that a total of over seventy varieties will 
be found, altho only four described and two or three unde- 
scribed varieties have yet been recorded. I have galls but no 
insects from an undescribed Q. hicolor variety from New 
Jersey. The galls of vesicula are not readily found, and only 
deliberate search is likely to turn up the many undescribed 
forms. The following references are to undoubtedly unde- 
scribed varieties, considering the hosts and localities involved. 
