490 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



large cells can be broken by the finger and thumb, while the 

 small cells cannot be opened without the knife. 



The insects themselves are equally variable, some being mere 

 dots of shining blue and green, while otheis are about as large as 

 the common red ant of the gardens, but with plumper bodies. In 

 consequence of these two facts, the large, strong-jawed insect 

 can easily make its way through the comparatively thin walls of 

 the large cell in which it was enclosed, while the small and 

 necessarily weak-jawed specimens are utterly \mable to pierce 

 the walls of their cells, which are so thick that they must bore 

 a hole equal in length to that of their whole body before they 

 can escape into the air. Consequently, the great mass of the 

 insects that are found in the cells are the small specimens, the 

 larger having made their escape. I find that on an average 

 twenty small insects are thus found in proportion to one of the 

 larger kind. 



Nothing is easier than the rearing of insects from this as 

 well as other galls, but to decide upon the species which 

 make them is by no means so easy a task as appears on the 

 surface. Even should the experimenter find the right species 

 of insect in the gauze bag, he has to go through the wearisome 

 task of searching through the family of Cynipidse, and identi- 

 fying the species — a process which every entomologist is rather 

 apt to postpone until the visionary period when he shall have 

 leisure. 



But it is very probable that the required insect does not make 

 its appearance at all, and that the little hymenoptera which 

 make their way out of the cells, or are found dead within them, 

 are not the rightful occupants of the galls. For the Cynipidae 

 are as liable to parasites as other insects, and it frequently hap- 

 pens that from a single many-chambered gall will issue insects 

 that sadly puzzle an amateur, as they seem to belong to at least 

 two distinct species. The very gall which has just been de- 

 scribed affords a good example of this fact, for in some of the 

 chambers are specimens of the true Cynips rosce, and in others 

 are insects which ^belong to another family, the Ichneumonidae, 

 which, as the reader may remember, are parasites upon other 

 insects. They have evidently introduced their eggs into the 

 cells occupied by the larvae of Cynips rosoe, so that the larvae 

 which have been hatched from these eggs have fed upon the 



