Kinsey : Gall Wasp Genus Cynips 
327 
species treated in this study. The shortest wings of bifurca 
have a venation closely resembling that of mellea, and the 
insect with those wings has so nearly the same honey-rufous 
color and the same general form as mellea that no one would 
question the relations of the two. On the other hand, the 
longer-winged individuals of bifurca show a venation which, 
while reduced, is nevertheless complete and characteristic of 
the long-winged members of the subgenus, showing the same 
short and broad radial cell and the uniquely stout second 
abscissa of the radius that one finds in varieties Carolina, 
crassior, anceps , etc. These larger individuals of bifurca even 
take on much of the piceous black color characteristic of the 
long-winged varieties, and the body proportions, the surface 
and hairy coating of the thorax, and the surface of the scu- 
tellum, even to the median ridge of the scutellum, are so much 
like those of the long-winged anceps that the relationship 
seems certain. In short, here is the evidence that direct mu- 
tation within a single population in nature may account for 
the apparently great but phylogenetically superficial dif- 
ferences between the short-winged mellea and the long-winged 
anceps, Carolina, compta, unica, etc. 
Bifurca is the only short-winged cynipid known with a trun- 
cate and bifurcate apex to the wing. This is the typical 
“truncate wing” of Drosophila laboratory mutations. The 
shortest-winged individuals of bifurca show the pointed tip to 
the wing that is characteristic of all other short-winged 
Cynipidae. 
It is of further interest to find that the reduction of the 
venation in mellea follows a pattern that is very different from 
that of bifurca (shown in figs. 356 to 360) . This can only mean 
that the two mutations have occurred independently from 
long-winged stocks, and is further evidence for believing that 
the short-winged Cynipidae represent varieties or species that 
are relatively recent and direct mutations of long-winged va- 
rieties or species. 
Cynips mellea variety litigans, new variety 
agamic form 
Figures 53, 391 
FEMALE. — In color largely black with some rich (not bright) 
rufous; the head largely rufous; the antennae nearly black, rufous on 
the first two segments and at the tip of each other segment; mesonotum 
rather closely punctate and hairy, finely roughened between the puncta- 
