208 A TOUR BOUND MY GASDEN. 



We find upon the branch of a peach-tree a sort of tube- 

 rosity which appears to be a gall of the tree produced by the 

 puncture of some insect. It is an insect perfectly alive. At 

 first it ■was like a flat roundish spot which progressed over 

 the leaves. The branches would then have been too difficult 

 of digestion for it: it fell with the leaves in the autumn. 

 Then it had a long voyage to make, for till that period its 

 journeys over the leaves had been confined during five months 

 to a surface about the size of a sixpence. 



Now that it has acquired strength, and is as large as a grain 

 of millet seed, it must quit the diy and fallen leaf, and ascend 

 the tree till it meets with a bsunch of the preceding year's 

 growth. It has five months to perform this journey in; it 

 may be done, but it must not stop to amuse itself on the 

 road. 



The journey once completed, it wiU repose after it for the 

 rest of its life ; it will fasten itself to a young branch, and 

 not only will it never leave it again, but still further, it will 

 never quit the point of the branch upon which it has esta- 

 blished itself. It grows — that is its mission, that is its duty. 

 When it has become as large as a pea, there comes a most 

 singular little fly, of a deep red, with two wings twice as 

 long as its body; these wings are of an opaque white, 

 ornamented on the outward side by a rich carmine band. 

 These little flies are the males of the animated tubero- 

 sities. 



Among these insects may be seen that which the Romans 

 required of women, carried to the highest degree : — 



" Lanam fecit, domum servaTit." 



" She spun her wool, and kept her house." 



Whilst the male, small, rakish, richly clothed in purple, 

 flies about at hazard, the female, scarcely living, taken for a 

 gall of the tree, for a swelling of a leaf or of a branch, re- 

 mains motionless, and waits for her husband. The male, who is 

 singularly small in comparison with the gall-insect, walks 

 over her, surveys her all over, for she is for him a sufficiently 

 large track; he examines her from north to south, from east 

 to west, and it is not till he is fatigued with running about 

 over his beloved object that he risks the avowal of his flame, 



