130 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 
the Dead Sea, whence they have been named Mala sodomitica, Poma 
insana, mad apples, &c. The existence of these 
“ Dead Sea fruits that tempt the eye, 
But turn to ashes on the lips”— ( Moore) 
has been denied by some authors, who fancied them to be the in- 
ventions of Eastern fable. Tacitus, Strabo, and Josephus all mention 
them; and their nature has been described by Walter Elliot, Esq. 
(Trans. Ent. Soe. vol. ii. p. 14.), where I have coliected the various 
opinions which have been entertained respecting their production, and 
which is now ascertained to be owing to a species of Cynips. Olivier, 
followed by Mr. Lambert (Linn. Trans. vol. xvii. p. 445.), con- 
sidered these galls and the Cynips which produces them as identical 
with the gall-nuts of commerce ; but such is certainly not the case. 
I have, therefore, proposed the name of Cynips insana for the in- 
habitant of these Poma sodomitica. (See further, Arboretum Brit. 
p- 1931.) Olivier has described another species of gall found upon 
the Quercus pyrenaica which is as large as the Mala insana, which it 
considerably resembles, and which is produced by Cynips umbraculus 
Oliv., Cynips Q. Toje Fab. (Journ. d’ Hist. Nat. vol. ii. pl. $2. and 
Arb. Brit. p. 1843.) 
Another species of gall has occasioned much controversy, having 
been regarded by many writers as a parasitical species of plant 
(Gard. Mag. xi. 691.). They are small, reddish, circular, flattened 
insular scales, found on the under side of the oak-leaves, attached by a 
very short peduncle, smooth on the side of the leaf, but pilose ex- 
ternally. The Rev. W. T. Bree has termed them oak spangles 
( Gard. Mag. xii. 496.). Nees von Esenbeck (Hym. Monogr. ii. 266.) 
and Reaumur were unable to form any notion as to the production of 
these galls. The former author notices that they are parasitically 
attacked by an Eurytoma, and the latter calls them “galles en cham- 
pignon,” and states that he had often found beneath the gall, specimens 
of a minute larva. I have repeatedly found these larvae (which 
appear to me to be dipterous) in the month of September; I 
have figured them in the Arboretum Britannicum, p. 1827. fig. 1652. 
Olivier (Eincyclop. Méthod.), however, and more recently Mr. F. Smith, 
in a memoir, read before the Entomological Society, have ascer- 
tained that these galls are produced by Cynips longipennis Fab. 
(Dipl. lenticulatus Oliv.) ; but as the developement of the insect does 
