1NSECTA — GALL INSECTS. 841 



"Not only all kinds of ants, birds, and carnivorous reptiles, as well as in- 

 sects, are upon the hunt for them, but the inhabitants ot many countries, 

 and particularly of that part of Africa Avhere I was, eat them. At the time 

 of swarming, or rather of emigration, they fall into the neighboring waters, 

 when the Africans skim them off with calabashes, bring large kettles full of 

 them to their habitations, and parch them in iron pots over a gentle fire, 

 stirring them about as is usually done in roasting coffee. In that state, 

 without sauce or any other addition, they serve them as delicious food ; and 

 they put them by handsfull into their mouths, as we do comfits. I have 

 eaten them dressed this way several times, and think them both delicate, 

 nourishing, and wholesome ; they are something sweeter, but not so fat and 

 cloying as the caterpillar or maggot of the palm tree, snout-beetle, curculio 

 palmarum, which is served up at all the luxurious tables of West Indian 

 epicures, particularly of the French, as the greatest dainty of the western 

 world." 



THE GALL INSECTS 1 



Aee bred in a sort of bodies adhering to a kind of oak in Asia, which differ witn 

 regard to their color, size, roughness, smoothness, and shape, and which we cali 

 galls. They are not fruit, as some have imagined, but preternatural tumors, 

 owing to the wounds given to the buds, leaves, and twigs of the tree, by a 

 kind of insect that lays its eggs within them. This animal is furnished with 

 an implement, by which the female penetrates into the bark of the tree, or 

 into that spot which just begins to bud, and there sheds a drop of corrosive 

 fluid into the cavity. Having thus formed a receptacle for her eggs, she 

 deposits them in the place, and dies soon after. 



The juice or sap of the plant, thus turned back from its natural course, 

 extravasates and flows round the egg ; after which it swells and dilates by 

 the assistance of some bubbles of air, which get admission through the pores 

 of the bark, and which run in the vessels with the sap. 



This little ball receives its nutriment, growth, and vegetation, as the other 

 parts of the tree, by slow degrees, and is what we call the gall-nut. The 

 worm that is hatched under this spacious vault, finds in the substance of the 

 ball, which as yet is very tender, a subsistence suitable to its nature ; gnaws 

 and digests it till the time comes for its transformation to a nymph, or chry- 

 salis, and from that state of existence changes into a fly. After this the in- 

 sect, perceiving itself duly provided with all things requisite, disengages 

 itself soon from its confinement, and takes its flight into the open air. The 



1 CynipidcB. The order Hymenoptera has four naked veined wings of unequal size; 

 mouth composed of jaws, mandibles, and two lips ; lip tubular at its base, terminated by 

 a labium, either doubled or folded in, and forming a kind of sucker ; females with a com 

 pound ovipositor, or sting at the anus. 



106 71 



