1, Mite, greatly magnified—natural length of female 0·23 millimetres; 2, head and fore parts, still more magnified (by permission, after Dr. A. Nalepa); 3, mite-galls of unusually large size, with one withered and open.
FIG. 65.—CURRANT GALL MITE, PHYTOPTUS RIBIS, NALEPA.
It is with regret that I read in your letter that you are not in strong health. But if you could work less severely might not you hope to have benefit? The excessively minute work of your elaborate investigations must be exceedingly wearing. In my own observations (which, indeed, are not to be compared with yours) I always find they tell very much on my health if I have at once to overwork my sight with the microscope and my mind in the record of my observations. But I have not robust health, so that I can sympathise. With renewed thanks for the welcome contents of yours lately received.
March 12, 1894.
I am greatly obliged to you for your kind present of your “Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Phyllocoptiden,” with its first-rate descriptions and magnificent figures. It is a very great advantage to me to be in possession of your noble work on these creatures, and I feel myself very much indebted for all the great help you have given me.
About the Phytoptus ribis. I delayed replying because I thought that if any thoroughly complete description of this Phytoptus had been published by Professor Westwood it would be sure to be known of by Mr. W. Hatchett Jackson, of Keble College, Oxford, who was Professor Westwood’s chief assistant. But he tells me that “under the generic name of Acarellus I can find nothing but a brief paragraph without figure in the accounts of the meetings of the Entom. Soc.” Mr. Jackson adds, “I remember the occasion very well, and making slides for him from specimens in our own garden. I shall search for those slides in the Hope Museum.”—W. H. J.
After some search here I found the enclosed, and as I think you would desire to see the fullest account which I believe Professor Westwood published, I have detached the page. If he were still with us I know how he would have delighted in your splendid unravelling of what was then a mystery. At your best convenience, when you have quite certainly no further use for the page, perhaps you would kindly let me have it back.
In my own early observations of the habits of the Currant Phytoptus I noted it as P. ribis, Westwood, on the authority, or rather after the example, of Mr. Andrew Murray (see “Aptera,” p. 355), for we had not in those days any more trustworthy and accepted guidance, but as to comparing these with such a work as yours, no one with the least atom of knowledge would think for a minute of such a thing.
Yours very truly,
Eleanor A. Ormerod.
To C. P. Lounsbury, Esq., Government Entomologist, Cape Town.