GALLS. 501 



is discovered, but in its place a little spherical object, about as 

 large as a No. 5 shot, which is veiy hard, and rolls about ireely 

 in the interior. If this be opened, the larva is found ■within it, 

 reminding the adept in fairy lore of the white cat whose gifts were 

 enclosed in a succession of nuts, each within the other. How 

 these singular little cellules are made is not known, though 

 their discoverer expended great trouble and patience upon them. 



The same naturalist mentions another speOies of gall, also 

 found upon the oak in Carolina. It is spherical, covered with 

 prickles like a thistle, and beset with a thick downy covering of 

 rather long hair. Many other galls possess these characteristics, 

 but the most curious point connected with this species is, that 

 the hairs are as mobile as those of the sensitive plant, and as 

 soon as they are touched, sink down, and never afterwards regain 

 their former position. 



There is a kind of fungus which is found in wine-vaults, and 

 which exhibits a similar phenomenon. When newly grown, it 

 hangs in great masses, like tufts of pure cotton-wool. But to 

 carry a specimen away is impossible, for, as soon as it is touched, 

 it begins to contract, and in a minute or two shrivels up into a 

 flat membraneous mass, that looks like the web of the house- 

 spider. M. Bosc was unable to rear any of the inmates of these 

 galls. 



The size of a gall is no criterion of the dimensions or numbers 

 of the insect which made it. Even in the galls which infest the 

 oak, the smallest galls often furnish the largest insects, and in 

 some specimens brought from Greece, the gall is as large as an 

 ordinary black-currant, while the cell would contain a red-currant, 

 showing that the inhabitant of the cell must be a large one in 

 order to fiU it. Again, although the oak-apple and rose-bedeguar 

 do contain a great number of insects, there are many examples 

 where gaJls scarcely so large as a pea contain from ten to fifteen 

 insects, while the ink-gall and the large Hungarian gall are 

 inhabited by a single insect. 



One of the most curious problems is, to my mind, that of the 

 brilliant colours with which many of these gaJls are decorated. 

 That the rose-bedeguar should be so beautifully adorned with 

 scarlet and green is a fact which does not seem to excite any 

 astonishment, inasmuch as it may be said that the colours which 



