92 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



title of cherry-galls, being beautifully coloured, some 

 scarlet, some white, some red and orange, in various 

 gradations. Their surface is smooth and brightly 

 shining; in substance they are of a soft pulpy consist- 

 ency, not unlike a gooseberry or hot-house grape. 

 In the centre of the mass is a solitary globular 

 chamber containing a single larva snugly curled up. 

 The undersides of oak leaves are also infested by 

 small, flat, round, disc-like bodies, the common 

 spangle galls of the Neuroterus lenticularis. They 

 sometimes occur in such quantities, but rarely, as to 

 weigh the leaves and cause premature withering. 

 The elegant so-called currant galls that depend on 

 slender threads from the oak's catkins resemble sparse 

 bunches of currants. Their colour is another reason 

 for their name, for they are sometimes scarlet and 

 sometimes white. 



The Rose Bedeguar, or Robin Redbreast's Pin- 

 cushion, frequent on hedge-roses and sweet-briars, is 

 formed by C. roses, an insect about the fifth of an inch 

 long. She deposits her eggs towards the end of May 

 or beginning of June, with the result of great swelling 

 of the stem, while the leaves are produced in 

 ordinary numbers but without cellular* tissue between 

 the fibre-vascular* bundles, causing the exterior of 

 the fungus-like growth to be covered with numberless 

 many-branched, hair-like filaments, the so-called 

 " moss." These galls attain their full size on 

 the approach of cold weather. How pretty 

 they look at the close of summer tinted with 

 green and red. When winter ultimately sets 

 in, they lose all brilliancy and become uniformly 



