Page:New species and synonymy of American Cynipidæ.pdf/21

 dark brown at the base of the antennæ and on the mouth-parts, coriaceous or finely rugose, the cheeks and the lower half of the face rather densely hairy; antennæ 13-jointed, hairy, brown, darker than the rest of the head, the first two joints stout and somewhat brighter in color. entirely bright reddish brown except for a decidedly black area between the anterior parallel lines, around the lateral lines, and in the foveal groove at the base of the scutellum; mesothorax regularly punctate, at the sides rugose, covered with long, whitish hairs; parapsidal grooves deep and smooth at the scutellum, extending less than half the length of the mesothorax; median groove lacking; anterior parallel lines rather smooth and distinct, extending half-way to the scutellum; lateral lines broad, smooth, sinuous, extending beyond the middle of the thorax; scutellum cushion-shaped, rugoso-punctate, hairy, the foveal groove at the base well-defined, moderately deep, rugose, with a slight indication of a separation into foveæ; pronotum and mesopleuræ darker in color. rich, dark rufous—brown or reddish piceous, lighter at the base, shining, smooth except for a few, indistinct, irregular striæ at the posterior edges of the segments; patches of hairs at the base of the second segment at the sides, and a tuft on the tip of the hypopygium. of the same color as the thorax, uniform in color, hairy; the tarsal claws toothed. long, clear, the wing-veins yellowish brown, second cross-vein the heaviest, a slight clouding at the base of the first abscissa of the radius; areolet large, cubitus extending only a little more than half-way from the areolet to the basal vein; radial cell open; first abscissa of the radius angulate. 3 mm. or less.

—A very curious cluster (Figs. 37 to 39) of brownish, mushroom-shaped, twig galls. Each gall is small, composed of three distinct parts: a solid top which is a broad, flattened cone 7–10 mm. in diameter but barely 4 mm. in height, the upper surface irregularly pitted, buff-brown, with the apex dark brown; a small, solid stem not 2 mm. in diameter and 2 or 3 mm. long connecting this cap with the base which contains the larval cell; a base which is a broad, inverted cone, the apex being the point of attachment on the twig, with an irregular, flaring, thin, leaf-like cup extending from this base up and around the cap of the gall, resembling an enormously developed cup at the base of a mushroom. Each gall is monothalamous, the larval cell occupying most of the basal part of the gall, the cell distinct from but tightly enclosed in the surrounding tissue. On the twigs of a variety of Quercus virginiana.

—Texas: Tiger Mills, Burnett Co. (Schaupp); San Carlos (in Coll. Gray Herb.).

—Two females and several clusters containing over fifty gall cotypes, in the collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology and in the author's collection, and gall cotypes in The American Museum of Natural History. I cut the adults from the galls which were collected by F. G. Schaupp in 1885.

The gall is the most curiously complicated structure I have seen among cynipid productions. It is possible that it is of quite a different form when young and fresh. I find additional specimens of these galls on oak material in the collections of the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University. This material was collected in November 1831 and is from San Carlos, Texas, which is over four hundred miles from the locality of the type material.