1864.] 
465 
flies obtained from the same gall often resemble each other very closely, 
except generically, I rather infer that C. seminator Fitch, is a Guest 
gall-fly, differing from the true G. seminator obtained by Harris and 
Osten Sacken in having the thorax 9 “cinnamon red” (40 specimens, 
Fitch) not “black” (Harris and 44 specimens O. S ), and in the % 
antennae being “bright tawney yellow” (Fitch) instead of “ yellow at 
their base but decidedly brownish on their latter half” (0. S.—Com¬ 
pare M. Y. Rep. II, §315 and Proc. Ent. Soc. Phila. I, p. 69.)* Harris 
in describing the thorax of C. seminator as “ black” says nothing about 
the sexes; and there seems to be no foundation for Hr. Fitch’s asser¬ 
tion that “ it is the % only which is described by Harris.” It might 
easily be ascertained from the Harrisian Collection at Boston, whether 
the Harrisian specimens are really all S S . 
One reason why such a mistake should have been made as describ¬ 
ing the same Guest gall-fly two or three times over as the maker of two 
or three distinct galls is, that several species—including the one spe¬ 
cially referred to—are remarkably variable both in their size and in 
their coloration, and specimens taken from the two extremes of a spe¬ 
cific series might well pass for distinct species. Hr. Fitch himself re¬ 
marks that “ several species of true gall-flies differ from each other 
only very slightly, * * being known with more certainty from the dif¬ 
ferent galls from which they come than from the characters which the 
flies themselves present.” {JY. Y. Rep. II, §809.) Since, as will be 
shown below, the same species of Guest gall-fly inhabits several differ¬ 
ent kinds of galls, and from the same galls two different species of 
Guest gall-flies have been bred by me, {St/nerges mendax n. sp. and 
S. rhoditiformis n. sp.) this latter criterion in their case is worth little 
or nothing. 
The classification of Cynipidse is at present in a state of chaos. Ac¬ 
cording to the latest authorities, Hartig and Rheinhardt, Cynipidre 
Mr. Bassett writes me word that on a hurried examination “among several 
hundred C. seminator he finds a very few individuals that answer to Dr. Fitch's 
description of the 9 as regards the cinnamon-red color of the thorax; that they 
are much smaller than the 9 9 that have a black thorax and abdomen, of which 
last there are a great number, and that he has always looked upon the first as 
parasites.” Several dozen 9 9 that he sent me were true Psenides, and all had 
a black thorax.—March 14, 1864. 
