5 
/ 
/ 
(Quercus Cerris, var. Lucombeana), with some of 
which I was kindly permitted to supply myself for 
experiment. In these the larvae appeared to be 
healthy, but up to the latest examination a short 
time ago, they had advanced no further towards 
development. Cold does not appear to affect them, 
for they have lain on earth within a fewhundred feet 
of where the grass minimum thermometer read as low 
as only 1 d above zero in January, 1881, and also sank 
to nearly that temperature in the preceding winter, 
but still whenever the acorn galls have been 
broken open for examination the tenants have 
proved to be alive. For a loDg time they looked 
plump and prosperous, but now the outer husk of 
the acorn and the gall cells crumble away at a 
touch, and the larvae, now very few from successive 
examinations, appear much shrunk. Dr. Mayr 
(one of our greatest Continental authorities on the 
subject of oak galls) notes that specimens of his 
own did not develop in due course, and in another 
case females emerged from three year old galls ; 
but I fear my four and a-half year old larvae will 
shew little excepting duration of unchanged con¬ 
dition. There is yet one more oak gall — the 
common marble gall, which is to be found so 
plentifully on our oak hedges in autumn, which is 
of considerable interest, from the great attention 
directed to it —not to say the sudden alarm caused 
by it, some eight and twenty years ago. Pre¬ 
viously to that time it had been little observed, 
but then either from its occurring in unusual num¬ 
bers, or from some cause unknown, an idea arose 
that it was a new-comer, which was rapidly 
spreading over the country, and would occasion 
serious loss to us by diminishing the amount of the 
acorn crop. It was proposed to utilize the cause 
of the disturbance by collecting the galls for the 
manufacture of ink, instead of Aleppo galls, and it 
was even suggested that we should export them, 
but trial and analysis have not encouraged this 
ink manufacture, and observation has showed that 
these galls chiefly occur on the low-growiog oaks or 
on oak hedges, and consequently the crop of the 
large acorn-bearing trees is not likely to be 
diminished. This matter, however, was very far 
from an unimportant consideration, for the acorn 
crop of the western counties makes a considerable 
addition to farm yard dietary. With respect to the 
causes of the occasional appearance of insects in 
great numbers, Miss Ormerod remarked that look¬ 
ing at the years since 1877, in the case of the great 
appearances of some one kind of insect which occa- 
