}io STRANGE DWELLINGS. 



cell is larger than that of many cynipida;. Within the cell, no 

 insect is discovered, but in its place a little spherical object, 

 about as large as a No. 5 shot, which is very hard, and rolls 

 about freely in the interior. If this be opened, the larva is found 

 within it, reminding the adept in fairy lore of the white cat 

 whose gifts were enclosed in a succession of nuts, each within 

 the other. How these singular litde cellules are made is not 

 known, though their discoverer expended great trouble and 

 patience upon them. 



The same naturalist mentions another species of gall, also 

 found upon the oak in Carolina. It is spherical, covered with 

 prickles like a thistle, and beset with a thick downy covering of 

 rather long hair. Many other galls possess these characteristics, 

 but the most curious point connected with this species is, that 

 the hairs are as mobile as those of the sensitive plant, and as 

 soon as they are touched, sink down, and never afterwards regain 

 their former position. 



The size of a gall is no criterion of the dimensions or numbers 

 of the insect which made it. Even in the galls which infest the 

 oak, the smallest galls often furnish the largest insects, and in 

 some specimens brought from Greece, the gall is as large as an 

 ordinary black-currant, while the cell would contain a red- 

 currant, showing that the inhabitant of the cell must be a large 

 one in order to fill it. Again, although the oak-apple and rose- 

 bed eguar do contain a great number of insects, there are many 

 examples where galls scarcely so large as a pea contain from ten 

 to fifteen insects, while the ink-gall and the large Hungarian 

 gall are inhabited by a single insect. 



One of the most curious problems is, to my mind, that of the 

 brilliant colours with which many of these galls are decorated. 

 That the rose-bedeguar should be so beautifully adorned with 

 scarlet and green is a fact which does not seem to excite any 

 astonishment, inasmuch as it may be said that the colours which 

 ought to have been developed in the petals and the leaves have 

 been diverted from their proper course, and forced to exhibit 

 themselves in the gall. 



