H 
BRITISH GALLS 
Notes on Collecting and Preserving G-alls 
The majority of galls may be preserved easily in 
the dried state. They should be kept in a series of 
glass-topped boxes. Great care must be taken to dry 
them thoroughly before putting them away, and to see 
that they are not infested with herbarium pests. It is 
advisable to put a little naphthaline in each box. The 
collection should be supplemented with coloured drawings 
of the galls and their inhabitants, and with photographs. 
A notebook should always be carried by the cecidologist in 
the field, and constantly used. The necessity for continuous 
observation and patient jotting down of detail cannot be too 
strongly insisted upon. If the galls are collected at the 
right season, there should not be much difficulty in breeding 
out Hymenopterci and Diptera. A glazed cabinet will be 
necessary for the insects. Mites and eelworms may be 
preserved in alcohol in test-tubes. 
Every specimen should be carefully labelled. Do not 
adopt the plan of simply affixing a number to the specimen 
and keeping the particulars posted up in the notebooks. 
Valuable collections, the work of a lifetime, have been 
either disposed of for a mere song or thrown away because 
the notebooks containing the keys to them had been lost. 
To convey an idea of the size of galls of very variable 
dimensions we allude to them as being of the size of a pea, 
walnut, or other familiar object. This is a convenient plan, 
and I have followed it for such galls in this book, but I am 
fully aware that it is not a scientific one. It is certainly 
better that all measurements be given in millimetres or 
centimetres, as the case may be. For this purpose the most 
convenient, and at the same time the cheapest measuring 
instrument that I know of is a little clockmaker’s gauge 
made by Boley of Esslingen.* It is a slide gauge, and 
reads with a vernier up to o*i mm. — a sufficiency of 
* It may be had from Messrs. Grimshaw and Baxter, 33-37, Goswell 
Road, Clerkenwell, London, E.C. Price 5s. 
