INSECTS. 



267 



from it. Our figure shows the leaves of the willow thus curled and bound 

 together with silken threads. 



Travelers from Mexico frequently bring with them, anion- the curious 

 products of that land, ' jumping-seeds.' When held in the hand, the 

 warmth causes the seed to jump, in the most unaccountable manner, to 

 a considerable distance — half an inch or even more. If the seed be 

 open it is found to contain a fat, white grub, the cause of the peculiarity 

 in the motion. It bends its body, and then suddenly pounds with its head 

 and jaws, and in this way causes the seed to rise in the air. If kepi in 

 confinement, at last there hatches from the seed a small moth, which is 

 cousin to the coddling-moth of our own latitudes. 



Other similar jumping-seeds and galls are known, and while od the 

 subject, the following account of a jumping-gall produced by one of the 

 gall-Hies may be of interest. Mr. Riley says: "It is a little, spherical, 

 seed-like gall, produced in large numbers on the under side of the leaves 

 of the post and other oaks of the white-oak group. This -all drops in 

 large quantities to the ground, and the insect within can make it hound 

 twenty times its own length, the ground under an infested tree I icing 

 sometimes fairly alive with the mysterious moving bodies. Tip- noise 

 made often resembles the pattering of rain." 



The honey-moth is a pest to the bee-raiser in Europe, but fortunately 

 it does not occur to any great extent in America. Where it occurs it some- 



Fig. 261. —Honey-moth (Galleria), with larvse and infested c tb. 



times almost completely fills the comb with its larvae, to the gp at injury 

 or the total destruction of the product. The larvae teed upon 

 and spin their delicate silken webs over the wax, or run tunnels I 

 silk in all directions through the comb. 



Forms allied to this attack almost every sort of vegetable | 



