THE CYNIPSID.^. I S3 



moss-like in texture, and appear to be composed of branching 

 filaments, which are placed closely together. Hence their name 

 of " hairy galls." There is a sort of stem or peduncle to the galls, 

 so that when they become variously tinted with green and red 

 colours towards the end of summer they look like pretty fruit. 

 During the winter time these colours disappear, and the galls 

 become uniformly brown. 



The mossy surface of the rose fungi is so soft and com- 

 pressible that it appears at first sight to form the whole of the 

 gall, but this is not the case, for there is a woody texture 

 beneath which is very hard indeed. On cutting the gall across it 

 will be observed that the larvae inside are admirably protected 

 against injuries from without, for their cells are in the midst of 

 the dense woody tissue, which is covered with the soft moss-like 

 structures. The space in which each larva lives is restricted 

 enough, but it undergoes its metamorphoses in the small cell. 

 The larvae are whitish, and the only colour about them is in the 

 eyes. When they have attained their full growth, these larvae 

 remain at rest for a long period ; they shorten themselves, as it 

 were, and remain huddled up and quiet from the end of autumn 

 to the beginning of the following spring. Then the metamor- 

 phosis into the pupa commences and is perfected. The Cynips 

 does not last more than ten or fifteen days in this form, and 

 then the second metamorphosis takes place. But if the spring 

 is not genial, and if the temperature is low, the perfect insect 

 does not get out of its cell, for it remains within waiting for the fine 

 weather. When the warmth of the season is sufificient for the well- 

 being of the Cynips it gnaws its way out of the gall and escapes. 



There is a Cynips that undergoes its metamorphosis in the 

 fruit of fig trees in Southern Europe, Africa, and the East, and 

 the perfect insect eats its way out of the fruit when the ovules 

 within are being fertilised with pollen ; consequently, this insect 

 brings out with it a quantity of the pollen in the form of dust. 

 Now this has been taken advantage of by practical men, and 

 figs that are backward and small are stimulated to grow arti- 

 ficially by fixing a fruit containing the Cynips upon them. 



The Cynips comes out of the fig covered with pollen, and 

 immediately pushes its way into the ill-developed fruit, the 



