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XXV. Some Account of the Galls found on a Species of Oak from the Shores of 

 the Dead Sea. By Aylmer Bourke Lambert, Esq., F.R.S. F.P.L.S., S^c. 



Read June 2, 1835. 



oOME time ago I had the honour to submit to the Society the branch of a 

 shrub from Monte Video bearing Galls containing a new insect brought by 

 Mr. Earle, who accompanied Captain Fitzroy in the ' Beagle.' I have now the 

 pleasure to exhibit specimens and a drawing of the far-famed apples " Mala 

 insana" from the mountains east of the Dead Sea, and which now proves to be 

 a Gall on a species of oak, containing an insect. These Galls were brought 

 home by the Hon. Robert Curzon, who has lately returned from the Holy 

 Land. They are the first that have been seen in England, and will enable us 

 to clear up the many great mistakes that have been made by travellers about 

 them. Mr. Curzon tells me the tree that produces them grows in abundance 

 ou the mountains in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, and is about the size 

 of our apple-tree. It is, perhaps, the "Quercus foliis dentato-aculeatis" men- 

 tioned by Hasselquist as growing on Mount Tabor (Trav. p. 281.). There 

 appear to be two or three different plants for whose fruit these Galls have 

 been mistaken, viz. Solatium sodomeum, which appears to have been con- 

 founded with Solanum Melongena, and Calotropts gigantea, &c. &c. I shall 

 refer to what Hasselquist says (p. 287.) of the iMala insana, and likewise the 

 account given of it in that useful work, the Modern Traveller, by Mr. C'onder, 

 who seems to have brought together all that has been said or written on this 

 most interesting subject : and what is very extraordinary, and greatly to the 

 praise of that gentleman, — having probably never seen the production itself, — 

 he rightly guessed its real nature. Mr. Curzon informs me these Galls when 

 on the tree are of a rich purple, and varnished over with a soft substance of 

 the consistence of honey, shining with a most brilliant lustre in the sun, which 

 makes the Galls appear like a most delicious and tempting fruit. Having had 



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