NTJT-TKEE. 43 



all trees, almost all plants, have insects which thus live in the 

 interior of their leaves. A worm which insinuates itself into 

 the leaves of the white lungwort, comes out in his day, meta- 

 morphosed into a little beetle of a whitish colour, in the form 

 of a weevil ; the one which escapes from the thickness of the 

 leaves of the mallow, after having lived and been meta- 

 morphosed there, is of a violet colour ; another worm feeds 

 upon the parenchyma between the two membranes of the 

 leaves of the henbane, which is a violent poison, and comes 

 out transformed into a fly. 



But let us return to the caterpillar which dwells in the 

 leaves of the nut-tree. A little moth has laid one egg on 

 each leaf of the nut-tree ; from this egg a caterpillar issues, 

 which, armed with good teeth, makes in the epidermis of the 

 leaf a wound by means of which it introduces itself into its 

 thickness; when once there, it advances, eating right and 

 left; until there remains so little of the leaf, that, by holding 

 it up to the sun, we can plainly perceive the miner. When 

 it has attained its full growth, it shuts itself up in a, web of 

 silk, from which it issues at a later period, a moth : this insect, 

 smaller than an ordinary gnat, when seen through a micro- 

 scope, appears to be the most richly clad, perhaps, of all the 

 moths known; its head is ornamented with two small white 

 tufts, its two upper wings are striped each with seven little 

 bands, alternately of gold and silver. 



All their species do not travel in their leaf in the same 

 manner; the worm which lives only in the leaves of thistles, 

 eats straight before it ; therefore its road has the appearance 

 of a gallery, very narrow at the beginning, and widening in 

 proportion as it is itself developed. The worms of the leaves 

 of the lilac live in society in the same leaf. 



Some of the fruits of the nut-tree, in spite of their cuirass 

 of wood, are inhabited as well as the leaves ; the flower is not 

 yet faded when an insect* comes and deposits one of its eggs 

 in it; the worm which issues from this egg, easily introduces 

 itself into the fruit, which is scarcely formed and quite soft; 

 there it feeds upon the kernel, which grows as fast as it 

 grows, and enlarges in proportion as it enlarges: but in the 

 meantime the shell is formed, and hardens so as sometimes 



* Balaninus Nucum. — Ed. 



