Kinsey: Gall Wasp Genus Cynips 
91 
The distribution maps of the European species of Cynips 
will offer material for thought even if they are obviously in- 
complete summaries of what European collectors may have 
stored away in their local collections. The records that have 
been published are often unsatisfactory, for two reasons : they 
may name the country without giving more precise localities, 
and tho there may be a dozen such records for a given species 
in a given country, they can be represented on the maps by 
only a single dot ; or, in a few cases, the published lists carry 
such precise locality records that a dozen collections may be 
cited from an area of not more than a few miles in extent. 
The maps as published may serve to show where it is most 
desirable to make additional collections or to make available 
the data from collections already in existence. 
The six European species of Cynips represent three well- 
marked groups. One of these includes folii and longiventris , 
species which have insects that are practically indistinguish- 
able in Central Europe, galls that are built on fundamentally 
the same plan, and bisexual forms which are almost identical 
as regards both the insects and their small, cell-like, bud galls. 
Three other species, divisa, agama, and disticha, are a unit in 
having lengthened abdomens (with agama nearer folii in this 
respect), more naked mesonota, smaller galls with much re- 
duced spongy parenchyma, and bisexual galls (known for 
divisa only) located primarily on the leaf. Cynips cornifex 
represents a third group, its very distinct gall indicating some 
unique origin or divergence along the evolutionary path, altho 
its insect is close to the divisa-agama-disticha group of spe- 
cies. 
All the Central European insects of Cynips, both in their 
agamic and bisexual generations, are strikingly alike, altho 
their galls are distinct enough. The group thus offers a good 
example of physiologic species, i.e. of species in which a physi- 
ologic quality (the gall-producing capacity) has mutated 
faster than any of the morphologic characteristics of the in- 
sects. An even more interesting situation is presented by the 
striking similarities which exist among the northern varieties 
of folii, longiventris, and divisa. If agamic insects alone were 
available, we would recognize the northern material as one 
species and the Central European as the only other species 
of European Cynips. With the help of the bisexual insects, 
