lxiv 
Journal of Proceedings. 
first distinguished from 0. eichornii, Ehr., by Mr. Kent in November, 
1871, specimens reaching him from Stourbridge, Worcestershire (‘ Manual 
of the Infusoria,’ 738). He goes on to say:—“ Quite recently, October, 
1881, the author has obtained luxuriant colonies of this species attached 
to Mynoplnyllum growing in a pond in Epping Forest, visited in con¬ 
nection with a field-day of the Essex Field Club. It "was observed of 
examples preserved for some days that the zooids freely abandoned their 
original mucilaginous zoocytium, and, reattaching themselves inde¬ 
pendently, “were scarcely distinguishable during such isolated condition 
from those of Gerdafixa, D’Udk.” Stichotricha secunda, Perty. (rare), 
Litonotus fasciola, Ehr., with plenty of Cliilodon cucullulus. Mull. Most 
of the species were in abundance. 
In Monk Wood, Mr. Henry Corder noticed a peculiar gall-like formation 
on the leaves of the Wood-Violet (Viola sylvatica ), and the same were 
afterwards found in abundance by Mr. W. Cole. The leaves of the plant 
are curled, thickened and folded over, taking a purplish hue, and forming 
little chambers which sometimes contain a small orange-coloured larva. 
Specimens were afterwards submitted to Mr. E. A. Fitch, F.L.S., who is 
of opinion that they are the work of a Gall-gnat ( Cecidomyia) hitherto 
unrecognised in Britain. Mr. Fitch has favoured us with the following 
note 
Cecidomyia viol.®, F. Low, in Essex. 
I have examined the supposed galls sent me by Mr. Corder and Mr. 
Cole. From the first specimens received I thought they were only abortive 
cleistogamic flowers of the Violet (Viola sylvatica), but from the later 
specimens I have the orange cecidomideous larvae in some numbers, 
proving them to be pseudo-galls and the work of gall-gnats. I have but 
little doubt that they are the work of Cecidomyia viola, a species only 
described last year (1881) by Dr. Franz Low, although his galls occurred 
on Viola tricolor, and these are on V. sylvatica. After fully describing the 
male and female gall-gnats, Dr. Low proceeds as follows :— 
“The larvas of this gall-gnat are pale orange-red; their third and 
fourth segments are darker orange-red. They live in numbers in rosette- 
like leaf-galls on Viola tricolor, and pupate therein in white cocoons. 
These leaf-rosettes occur at the tips of the stalks and on the side-shoots 
which originate at the axis of the stalk ; by the action of the gnat-larvae 
the internodes become greatly shortened, thickened, and altered in diffe¬ 
rent ways, so that the leaves become crowded closely together. The 
adjacent leaves are affected as follows : they remain very short, are not so 
deeply cleft as the normal ones, are somewhat thickened and rolled 
inwardly towards the upper side from both edges in the shape of a cornet, 
and are covered with a very rich growth of hair. Flowers on a very 
short, thick, twisted stalk, and which do not become fully developed, 
usually occur between the leaves. In such flowers the calyx is generally 
malformed like the above-mentioned leaves, the petals are generally green 
and deformed, and the organs of fructification wholly or partially abor¬ 
tive. This gall has hitherto only been observed in the months of July, 
August, and September, at which time the gall-gnats emerge. I first 
found it in 1878 in great numbers at Payerbach, in Lower Austria, in a 
fallow field, and since then at Baden in a stubble. Herr Alfred Hetschko 
sent it me at the end of August, 1879, from Ellgotli, near Tesclien, in 
Austrian Silesia, and, according to a short note from Herr D. H. R. 
v. Selilechtendal, he also finds it at Zwickan, in Saxony.”—(‘ Verhand- 
lungen der k.-k. Zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien,’ vol. xxx., 
p. 35, 1881). 
