LANAM FECIT; DOMOM SERTAVIT. 209 



after which, flying once or twice round his beloved, he de- 

 parts. The wife, from that moment, thinks of nothing but 

 the numerous family she has to bring into the world — about 

 two thousand children. She begins to lay, and her eggs all 

 come enveloped in a sort of cotton : Lanamfedt — She has spun 

 her wool. 



Then the gall-insect changes its form; its belly flattens, 

 and becomes so thin that _it joins the back; which forms 

 a hollow space under it, in which are its eggs. Its back 

 hardens, the belly and the back are quite confounded, the 

 gall-insect withers, dies, and becomes a dwelling-place for its 

 young ones. This is better than the domum servavit; she does 

 not remain in the house, she becomes the house itself. 



At the end of twelve days the young insects, as well those 

 which are to become round spots as those that will be little 

 brown flies, feel a desire to quit home and their mother, 

 which are for them one and the same thing. The little gall- 

 insects, which the eye cannot then distinguish without the 

 assistance of a microscope, wish to come out from that chamber 

 which has been their mother ; nature has foreseen this want, 

 and has left a window in this mother by which the young 

 insects escape, and go to fix themselves upon leaves, as we 

 found them at the commencement of our account. 



Many savants for a long time took these insects tor galls, 

 that is to say, for excrescences formed by the puncture in 

 which certain insects lay their eggs in the thickness of certain 

 leaves and certain branches. 



Some insects seem to partake the error of the savants. 

 Ichneumons lay their eggs in the body of that insect, and 

 the young ichneumons come out later, but not as the proper 

 young ones do; they bore holes through this motionless 

 mother, and are born by violence. 



The scarlet-grain of Poland, kermes and cochineal, which 

 are used for dyeing red, are insects of this kind. 



I bum, my friend, to know what account you will oppose 

 to this, you who have travelled so far; I defy you even to 

 venture a falsehood so extraordinary as this truth which I 

 have just exhibited to you. I in vain recal to my mind all 

 the voyages I have read; I find in them always the same 

 custom as we see here. The women place rings in their nosea 



p 



