BEETLE-GALLS. -^13 



leaves at the extremity of a bunch neatly folded up in a bundle, 

 but not quite so closely as is usual in the case of leaf- rolling 

 caterpillars. On opening them up, there was no caterpillar to 

 be seen, the centre being occupied with a roundish, brown- 

 coloured, woody substance, similar to some excrescences made 

 by gall insects {Cynips). 



' Had we been aware of its real nature, we should have put it 

 immediately under a glass, or in a box, till the contained insect 

 had develoj^ed itself; but instead of this, we opened the ball, 

 where we found a small yellow grub coiled up, and feeding on 

 the exuding juices of the tree. As we could not replace the 

 grub in its cell, part of the wall of which we had unfortunately 

 broken, we put it in a small pasteboard-box with a fresh shoot 

 of hawthorn, expecting that it might construct a fresh cell. 

 This, however, it was probably incompetent to perform ; it did 

 not, at least, make the attempt, and neither did it seem to feed 

 on the fresh branch, keeping in preference to tlie ruins of its 

 former cell. 



' To our great surprise, although it was thus exposed to the 

 air, and deprived of a considerable portion of its nourishment, 

 both from the fact of the cell having been broken ofif, and from 

 the juices of the branch having been dried up, the insect went 

 through its regular changes, and appeared in the form of a small 

 greyish brown beetle of the weevil family. 



' The most remarkable circumstance in the case in question, 

 was the apparent inability of the grub to construct a fresh cell 

 after the first was injured, — proving, we think, beyond a doubt, 

 that it is the puncture made by the parent insect when the egg 

 is deposited that causes the exudation and subsequent concretion 

 of the juices forming the gall.' Although the insect in question 

 succeeded in attaining the perfect state, it would probably be 

 of stunted growth in consequence of the deprivation of food. 

 Such, at all events, is the case with insects of other orders, 

 when their supply of food is at all checked while they are in 

 the larval state. 



There is another weevil, scientifically called Cleonus sula- 



