116 AN INSECT UNIVEKSE. 



by excavating his trunk to form their abodes, but by also ap- 

 propriating the honey-dew with which his leaves are "sprint." 

 The latter may also be considered as affording pasture for the 

 Ant's" " Aphis cattle."* Of these more than one breed are to 

 be found, at all seasons, on the oak ; but the most distinguish- 

 ed and distinguishable is the large brown, remarkable for size 

 and for a sucker of prodigious length. 



A single oak-bough will often present to our view an uni- 

 verse of insect worlds in the numerous galls on leaf, stem, 

 and catkin, differing in size and form, but all produced (as 

 we have seen already) by the puncture of a little fly. 



Even the acorn has its peculiar and appropriate insect ; each 

 lichen, moss, and fungus oak derived swarms with its in- 

 sect denizens ; while the oak- supported ivy is the grand re- 

 sort, especially in autumn, of innumerable flies and bees, 

 which, when scarcely another flower is remaining, find food 

 in its honeyed blossoms and shelter under its glazed foliage. 



In our most imperfect review of the insect tribes, which 

 depend for their all of life and enjoyment on the oak, one can 

 hardly help being reminded of other orders of being more or 

 less indebted to the same vegetable benefactor even from 

 man, who building house and ship with oaken timber, is as- 

 sisted to perpetuate his thoughts by oaken and insect galls to 

 the bird who, building his eyry on oaken branches, derives a 



* Aphis of the Oak. 



