FIELD NOTES ON GALL-INHABITING CYNIPID WASPS AVITH DESCKIPTIONS OF NEW SPECIES By Lewis H. Wfxd Of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture The present paper, dealing with the true gallflies (Cynipidae) of (he order Hymenoptera, contains descriptions of 53 new species (of which all but two guest flies from the Philippines are from the I.^nited States), descriptions of the associated sex of 5 old species described from one sex only, and biological notes on about 180 other described sj^ecies. It was prepared under the general direction of S. A. Rohwer, custodian of Hymenoptera in the LTnited States Na-tional Museum, where types of the new species are deposited. The beginner in the study of the gall-making Cynipidae is handi-capped and often discouraged by the lack of published information as to the date of emergence of the maker of the gall. Not knowing what time of year to collect the galls to get the maker, he rears noth-ing or g.'ts only guests or parasites. Some general suggestions on this point, applying only to Cynipid galls, how^ever, may be of value. Galls on herbaceous plants like Fragaria^ Potentilla^ Nepeta^ Silphlum^ Am.hrosm, Microseris, Hypochoe7'is, Lactuca, Lyr/odesmia, and Prenanthes may be collected in the fall if they can be put where they will not dry out too much but are better left in the open all winter and brought into the laboratory in the spring. A past board box Avitli a vial or test tube in one side makes a conve-nient breeding cage. Many galls on shrubby plants like Rosa, I?uhus\ and Chrysothauuius may be treated in the same way. The succulent vernal galls on the leaves, buds, and flowers of oak must, however, usually be left on the tree until the larvae within use up all the nutritive layer of plant tissue and transform into pupae but such species d 'velop rapidly and it is a matter of leaving them some days or at most but a few weeks longer. When the larvae are about mature or the pupa stage is reached twigs bearing such galls can be put in a bottle of water with cotton plugged tightly around the stems at the mouth of the bottle so that the emerging flies can No. 261 1.— Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 68. Art. 10 60726—-2G 1 1
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