CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 89 



eggs) within the bodies of young caterpillars and maggots, 

 whence we conjecture that tliose of the same genus, to be 

 found in vegetable excrescences, may in like manner 

 suck in the juices of the equivalent parts of vegetables. 



And this the dry and spongy texture of some of these 

 kinds of excrescences seems to evince ; for, if you cut in 

 pieces a wild poppy-head for example, or the great balls 

 of the oak, you will find in those partitions wherein these 

 worms are lodged, nothing but a pithy substance like 

 that of young elder : and, if there chance to be any cells 

 unseized (which I have sometimes observed) the seeds 

 therein will be found yet entire and perfect. Whence 

 very probably they feed upon, or suck in by little and 

 little the yet liquid pulp of the tender seeds, and leave 

 the substance or fibrous parts of the seeds entire ; which 

 fibres are, as the intermediate juice is exhausted, mon- 

 strously expanded into an excrescence by the yet vege- 

 tative power of the plant. 



As for matter of fact to clear the truth of that opinion, 

 that the divers races of ichneumones are generated by 

 their respective animal parents, and particularly that 

 those which the various excrescences of vegetable produce 

 are not plantigenous : I am in great hopes the instance 

 of poppy-heads swollen into excrescences, will favour us 

 the next season. My expectation is chiefly grounded 

 upon the condition and nature of that plant, which is 

 such, that nothing can pierce the skin of it and wound it 

 but it must necessarily leave a mark of its entry, the 

 milky juice springing upon the lightest touch, and dry- 

 ing or concreting suddenly into a red scar. And this I 

 think I may affirm, that of the many heads grown into 

 excrescences which I gathered this summer, all had these 

 marks upon them ; but our aim is here only to make way 

 for the observation against the next season. To which 

 purpose also we propose the following queries : 



1 . Whether the shagged balls of the wild rose are not 

 excrescences from the bud and very fruit of the plant, 



