Excerpt from Key to American Insect Galls This key to American insect galls is an outgrowth of earlier studies of the gall midges and was assembled primarily to facilitate the identification of the numerous galls submitted for name. It gives for the first time, for American forms, a comprehensive survey of the curious plant growths caused by insects and their near allies, the plant mites. With such a guide many amateurs will doubtless be encouraged to enter a charming and delightful field of study, one which may be followed with profit for the child at School as well as by the student of more mature years. The specialist will find herein references to the best accounts of the numerous species listed as well as a summary of American literature, while the many records of host relationships can not be ignored by the biologist and ecologist. The obvious concentration of many forms upon relatively few host plants, especially those with numerous closely allied Species, such as the willows, oaks and goldenrods, and the great diversity of both structure and food habits among gall midges, all suggest interesting lines of study. These relationships are brought out more clearly in a tabulation of the hosts and galls (see page where 1441 species are listed, 682 being gall midges and 445 gall wasps. The remainder of the plant deformations discussed in this work are produced by a few of the other two-winged ies or Diptera, four winged ies or Hymenoptera, beetles or Coleoptera, moths or Lepidoptera, and the true bugs or Hemiptera, especially the plant lice and the plant mites or Eriophyidae, the last being represented by 161 species. The deformations, though numerous, by no means exhaust the possibilities and in the estimation of Mr L. H. Weld, a student of the Cynipidae, nearly one-third, mostly inhabitants of inconspicuous galls, are still unknown. It should also be remembered that extensive regions are comparatively unexplored for insect galls of all kinds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."