282 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



stem of the young shoots of the tree, and deposits 

 its eggs in the wound, from which, in consequence, 

 the sap issues and forms over them a roundish fruit- 

 like excrescence, enclosing them in its interior. After 

 a time, the eggs become white grubs, which undergo 

 their transformations within the gall, and then eat 

 their way through the substance of the interior to the 

 skin, and finally escape, through a little hole which 

 they have made, into the open air in the form of 

 winged flies. The number and variety of these galls 

 are very great. They are very common in this country. 

 The shapes which they assume are often singular, and 

 in many instances very beautiful. One of the most 

 remarkable is the bedeguar gall, or the robin redbreast's 

 pincushion, which looks like a tuft of bristling red 

 moss growing on the extremity of a shoot of the wild 

 rose, in the interior of which are numerous cells, each 

 of which serves as a habitation for a larva. Perhaps 

 the loveliest is the cherry gall, one of the commonest 

 of our species, produced in great abundance on the 

 under side of the oak leaf in July and August. It 

 is a little less than the fruit after which it is named ; 

 perfectly round ; at first pale green and semi-trans- 

 parent, exhibiting a kind of granular structure like 

 condensed honey, and afterwards becoming rosy on 

 one side, the crimson spreading and deepening until 

 the whole surface is at length dyed as red as a ripe 

 cherry. Nothing can be prettier than an oak coppice 

 covered with myriads of these tempting-looking fruits. 

 On the leaf of the maple another species of gall in- 



