Black-game i43 



dried stem, and the ripe seed on tlie top would be awaiting the advent 

 of the harvester. 



The hungry Black-cock would, first of all, tap the stem in various 

 places, and extract the beetle, and finalh' level the plant and eat the 

 seed. 



I described the kind of plant that had occurred to me in my 

 dreams to the keepers and gillies. They knew nothing of it. I 

 looked for it myself with an entire lack of success. I still have a 

 sneaking fondness for my theory, but I am bound to admit that no 

 such plant existed, and that the foundations on which I built were 

 laid in sand ! 



Before I received the Kew report, my views suffered a rude 

 shock. 



\\'alking out onto the moor one day, we had to pass along a road 

 ov(>rhung with oak trees. There had been a heavy wind during the 



Fig. 13. 



night, and the ground was strewn with fallen oak leaves, but this 

 was not the particular feature which arrested mv attention. The 

 road was besprinkled for its whole length with minute white confetti, 

 looking as though a bridal party had just passed over it ; and when 

 I picked up the confetti, and examined them, I discovered that they 

 were identical with my " seed." On the fallen oak leaves we found 

 numbers of these bodies attached to their under surface, and a 

 plentiful crop on the living leaves still attached to the tree (Fig. 13). 

 The secret of my supposed " seed " was now revealed ; they 

 were common " Spangle Galls," produced by " Gall-wasps " 

 {Xeuroferus Icnticularis).* This was confirmed bv the authorities 

 of Kew. 



*Hymenopterous insects of the family Cynipida, whose favourite plant-home is the oak, 

 and whose reproduction follows an alternation of generations fparthenogenetic and sexual alter- 

 nately). In the species referred to here, the Seiiroterus generation is parthenogenetic and produces 

 larv,-c, which develop into the Spathegaster (se.xual) generation, from whose eggs, again, the 

 Keiiroterus form is reproduced — and so on in a repeated cycle of alternations of sexual and ase.xual 

 generations. — Editor. 



