CHAPTER VIII. 



MANUFACTURE OF NUT GALLS BY THE GALL INSECT. 



" No present that insects have made to the arts is 

 equal in utility and universal interest, comes more 

 home to our best affections, or is the instrument 

 of producing more valuable fruits of human wis- 

 dom and genius, than the gall-insect : I mean the 

 fly that gives birth to the gall-nut, from which 

 ink is made. How infinitely are we indebted to 

 this little creature, which at once enables us to 

 converse with our absent friends and connexions, 

 be their distance from us ever so great, and sup- 

 plies the means by which, to use the poet's lan- 

 guage, we can 



give to airy nothing 



A local habitation, and a name !" 



