Kinsey: Gall Wasp Genus Cynips 
253 
species of Cynips. Indeed, I have never worked with any 
species of the Cynipidae in which there is more even grada- 
tion from one extreme (canadensis) to the other (vorisi). 
Such intergradation does occur commonly among some other 
organisms, both plant and animal, and it is rather remarkable 
that it does not occur more often among the Cynipidae. There 
will, no doubt, be some who would object that such an even 
series as fulvicollis should not be broken up into varieties; 
but the extremes of the present series are as different in fea- 
ture and build and physiologic reactions as a Spaniard is from 
a Swede. There is more than a political purpose served in 
applying distinct names to those two races or varieties of 
Europeans, even tho intermediate areas of Europe may ex- 
hibit gradations from one to the other. Similarly, it would 
confuse the biologic data to apply one name to this whole 
complex of fulvicollis. The variety canadensis, for instance, is 
a distinctly small insect with a largely naked mesonotum, a 
very small gall, a two-year life cycle, and a restriction to 
white oak in sub-Canadian areas. The variety vorisi is a large 
and robust insect, always with a very hairy mesonotum, a 
gall which averages twice the diameter (which means eight 
times the volume) of nigricollis galls, a one-year life cycle, 
and a restriction to Q. macrocarpa and Q. bicolor in Ozark 
areas. In the territory between northern Michigan and 
Kansas, one may hnd every gradation and a continuous varia- 
tion from one to the other. Wherever the two insects happen 
to come in contact, they certainly interbreed and produce indi- 
viduals not fit for the cabinet of any systematist who believes 
that all specimens represent one species or another. Among 
the more than five thousand insects which we have of this 
group, it has proved possible to make varietal determinations 
for every series, altho the paucity of available taxonomic 
characters in these aborted, short-winged, forms and the 
amount of hybridization makes it impossible to guarantee our 
determinations of each individual as we can for most other 
Cynips. 
The galls of fulvicollis sometimes contain a high percentage 
of parasites and inquilines. Most of the parasites emerge in 
the first spring after the development of the gall, the emer- 
gence occurring from February to July. The inquilines 
emerge for the most part in the later part of that same spring, 
