CYNIPS QUERCUS FOLII. 



THE SECONDARY CHARACTERS. 



CYNIPS. Head small. Corselet thick and high, which 

 causes them to appear as if hunch-backed. Wings inferior, 

 with a single vein. 



THE SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



CYNIPS QUERCUS FOLII. The females, towards the period 

 of oviposition, assume a globular form and make punctures 

 in plants (particularly in the Quercus infectoria), for the pur- 

 pose of introducing their eggs, which cause excrescences de- 

 nominated gall-nuts. 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



Hippocrates employed the nutgall (KTJK'IS) as an astringent, 

 both internally and externally. Dioscorides describes it as 

 the fruit of the oak, and the same error is found in the works 

 of comparatively recent writers. 



The leaves of the oak, of every species, and those of some 

 other plants, display small excrescences on the petioles, pro- 

 duced by an insect ; but the officinal gall is found only on 

 the Quercus infectoria, whose geographical position is Asia 

 Minor from the Bosphorus to Syria, and from the Archipela- 

 go to the frontiers of Persia. These excresences are the 

 result of the puncture of the CYNIPS QUERCUS FOLII (Diplo- 

 lepsis Gallcetinctorice), which is furnished with a terebra, or 

 borer, by means of which it is enabled to perforate the folia- 

 ceous or cortical parts of plants, for the purpose of depositing 

 its egg in the wound thus made. 



This insect is a small hymenopterous fly, with a fawn- 

 colored body, dark antennae, and the upper part of the abdo- 

 men of a shining brown color. The ovipositor, as it is termed, 

 of the female is long, slender, articulated, and so flexible that 

 it is rolled up spirally and concealed within the abdomen 

 when the insect is not using it ; but it is so admirably con- 

 structed, that it can be run out and made stiff and firm at 

 pleasure. With this little instrument the insect punctures 

 the petiole of the oak-leaf, and deposits in the wound an egg 

 too small to be seen by the naked eye, and probably also a 

 drop of some irritating fluid. In a few hours the irritation 

 which is induced in the part causes an afflux of fluids to it, 

 the gall rises, and in a day or two attains its full size. It is 



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