162 HISTORY OF 



them upon hot plates. From the various methods 

 of killing them, arise the different colours which 

 they appear in when brought to us. While they 

 are living, they seem to be sprinkled over with a 

 white powder, which they lose as soon as the 

 boiling water is poured upon them. Those that 

 are dried upon hot plates are the blackest. What 

 we call the cochineal are only the females, for the 

 males are a sort of fly, as already observed in the 

 kermes. They are used both for dyeing and medi- 

 cine, and are said to have much the same virtue 

 as the kermes, though they are now seldom used 

 alone, but are mixed with other things for the 

 sake of the colour. 



I shall end this account of the beetle tribe, with 

 the history of an animal which cannot properly be 

 ranked under this species, and yet which cannot 

 be more methodically ranged under any other. 

 This is the insect that forms and resides in the 

 gall-nut, the spoils of which are converted to such 

 useful purposes. The Gall Insects are bred in a 

 sort of bodies adhering to a kind of oak in Asia, 

 which differ with regard to their colour, size, 

 roughness, smoothness, and shape, and which we 

 call galls. They are not fruit, as some have ima- 

 gined, but preternatural tumours, owing to the 

 wounds given to the buds, leaves, and twigs of 

 the tree, by a kind of insects that lay their eggs 

 within them. This animal is furnished with an 

 implement, by which the female penetrates into 

 the bark of the tree, or into that spot which just 

 begins to bud, and there sheds a drop of corrosive 

 fluid into the cavity. Having thus formed a re- 



