488 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



wheu I cut the double gall, in order to see how the inmatea 

 had fared, I found the dead insect lying near the middle of the 

 second gall, so that she was even farther from the outer air 

 than when she started on her course. 



The Cynips Kollari is larger than the generality of the 

 family, equaUing a small house-fly in dimensions. Its colour 

 is pale brown. A figure of the insect may be seen in the 

 illustration. 



Neablt in the centre of the illustration is seen a figure of 

 the well-known, gall that is so common on the rose, whether 

 wild or cultivated, and which is popularly known by the name 

 of Bedeguak. This gaU is caused by a very tiny and very 

 brilliantly-coloured insect, named Gynips rosce, which selects the 

 tender twigs of roses, and deposits its eggs upon them. 



I have now before me quite a collection of these galls, some 

 of which are so variable in shape that they scarcely seem to 

 have been made by the same species of insect. When the 

 Cynips rosae deposits her eggs upon the rose, the effects are 

 rather remarkable. Each egg becomes surrounded with its own 

 cell or gall, and the whole of them become fused into one mass. 

 The exterior of these galls is not smooth, like that of the speci- 

 mens which have been described, but is covered with long, 

 many-branched hairs, which stand out so thickly that they 

 entirely conceal the form of the gaU itself 



Keaumiir, who gave much attention to galls, thought that the 

 hairs were formed by the exudation of sap through little orifices 

 in the gi'owing gall, just as the web of the spider is formed by 

 the exudation of a glutinous liquid from minute pores. This 

 theory, however, is scarcely tenable, because sap has no power 

 of hardening into threads when exposed to the air, and, 

 besides, a well-defined vegetable structure is seen in the hairs, 

 which would not be the case if they were merely hardened sap. 

 Moreover, if the hairs were formed in this manner, they could 

 not have the power of throwing out the tiny branchlets with 

 which they are studded, or of ramifying like the bough of a tree, 

 as is often the case with them. 



The number of galls in a single Bedeguar is mostly very 

 great. A specimen of average size, taken at random from the 

 drawer in which the galls are kept, was, when fidly clothed, as 



