6 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



or Galla Spinosa, are the most esteemed ; the second sort 

 is brought from the South of Europe. 



All the varieties of galls are caused by insects, which 

 prick the tender bud of the oak which begins to be 

 turgid in June, and then deposit their eggs in the wound ; 

 these eggs swell with the excrescence, and first turn to 

 worms, and then to flies, which, having perforated the 

 galls make their escape. And as some eggs are unfruit- 

 ful and remain in the gall, they are observed to yield a 

 volatile salt. The gall insect is a species of the inchneu- 

 mon fly, and so singularly differing from other insects that 

 we refer the curious to Reaumer's Hist. Insects, vol. 4, 

 p. 40. It is suspected that these insects eject some venom- 

 ous ichor with their eggs, which effectually obstructs the 

 regular vegetation of the bud, and causes those protube- 

 rances called galls, and oak apples, from their afterwards 

 taking the shape and colour of that fruit. 



At Rome the civic crown was composed of oak leaves. 

 But the ancient veneration of this tree was not confined 

 to the heathens, for it appears there were oak-trees in the 

 temple of the true God ; as the Bible informs us that Joshua 

 " wrote the commandments and the precepts of the Lord, 

 in the book of the law, and that he took a great stone, 

 which he set up under an oak, which was in the sanctuary 

 of the Lord." 



In the valley of Mamre, which was in the beautiful 

 country of the tribe of Judah, where Abraham was visited 

 by the angels who announced to him the birth of Isaac, 

 stood an oak, that became celebrated as the tree under 

 which Abraham often went to repose and refresh himself. 

 Bayle says, that this oak was said to have existed in the 

 reign of the Emperor Constantius. 



The biblical reader will recollect so many important 

 notices of this tree as to induce us to think that the Israel- 

 ites considered it almost as a sacred tree. As the oak in 



