304 STRANGE DWELLINGS. 



another gall afterwards. As a natural consequence, she has 

 died from exhaustion before she could emerge into the air; 

 and when I cut the double gall, in order to see how the inmates 

 had fared, I found the dead insect lying near the middle of the 

 second gall, so that she was even farther from the outer air than 

 when she started on her course. 



The Cynips KoUari is larger than the generality of the 

 family, equalling a small house-fly in dimensions. Its colour 

 is pale brown. A figure of the insect may be seen in the 

 illustration. 



Nearly in the centre of the illustration is seen a figure of 

 the well-known gall that is so common on the rose, whether 

 wild or cultivated, and which is popularly known by the name 

 of Bedeguar. This gall is caused by a very tiny and very 

 brilliantly-coloured insect, named Cynips rosce, which selects 

 the tender twigs of roses, and deposits its eggs upon them. 



I have now before me quite a collection of these galls, some 

 of which are so variable in shape that they scarcely seem to 

 have been made by the same species of insect. When the 

 Cynips rosae deposits her eggs upon the rose, the efi"ects are 

 rather remarkable. Each egg becomes surrounded with its 

 own cell or gall, and the whole of them become fused into one 

 mass. The exterior of these galls is not smooth, like that of 

 the specimens which have been described, but is covered with 

 long, many-branched hairs, which stand out so thickly that they 

 entirely conceal the form of the gall itself. 



The number of galls in a single Bedeguar is mostly very 

 great. A specimen of average size, taken at random from the 

 drawer in which the galls are kept, was, when fully clothed, 

 as large as a golden pippin. When the hairy clothing was 

 removed, its size notably diminished, and it was then seen to 

 be composed of a large number of woody tubercles, varying 

 much in size and shape. Their average dimensions, however, 

 are about equal to those of an ordinary pea. The tubercles in 

 question are fused together more or less strongly, some falHng 

 off at a slight touch, while others cannot be separated without 



