Mr Lambert on the Apples of Sodom. 21 
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 prove 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 Eng- 
land, 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 on 
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 mentioned by Hasselquist as growing 
on Mount Tabor (Tray. p. 281.) There appear to be two or 
three different plants for whose fruit these galls have been 
mistaken, viz. Solanum sodomeum, which appears to have 
been confounded with Solanum Melongena, and Calotropis 
gigantea, &e. [shall refer to what Hasselquist says (p. 287) 
of the Mala insana, and likewise the account given of it 
in that useful work, the Modern Traveller, by Mr Conder, 
who seems to have brought together all that has been said or 
written on this most interesting subject ; and, what is very ex- 
traordinary, and greatly to the praise of that gentleman, hay- 
ing 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 ap- 
pear like a most delicious and tempting fruit. Having had 
the curiosity to taste a small quantity of the interior of one, 
I found it the strongest of bitters, and that it may truly be 
said of it, “ as bitter as gall.” The gall is pear-shaped, with 
a circle of small sharp-pointed protuberances on the upper 
part of it, which appear to be formed by the insect for air or 
defence, or some other purpose. In each of the galls there 
is an aperture through which the insect escapes, and in the 
centre there is a small round hole or nidus, where it has lodged. 
Since writing the aboye, I find the leaves of the oak to be 
