256 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 
stopped, some in the leaves, other in the twigs, and had there hatched 
and produced galls! Redi’s solution of the difficulty was even more ex- 
traordinary. This philosopher, who had so triumphantly combated the 
absurdities of spontaneous generation, fell himself into greater. Not 
having been able to witness the deposition of eggs by the parent flies in 
the plants that produce galls, he took it for granted that the grubs which 
he found within them could not spring from eggs: and he was equally 
unwilling to admit their origin from spontaneous generation, — an ad- 
mission which would have been fatal to his own most brilliant discoveries, 
He therefore cut the knot, by supposing that to the same vegelative soul 
by which fruits and plants are produced is committed the charge of 
creating the larvae found in galls!1 An instance truly humiliating how 
little we can infer, from a man’s just ideas on one point, that he will not 
be guilty of the most pitiable absurdity on another ! 
Though by far the greater part of the vegetable excrescences termed 
galls are caused by insects of the genus Cynips, they do not always ori- 
ginate from this tribe. Some are produced yi weevils of different genera 
and species. Thus those on the roots of kedlock (Sinapis arvensis) I 
have ascertained to be inhabited by the larvae of Nedyus contractus and 
cassimilis. From the knob-like galls on turnips, called in some places the 
ambury, Thave bred another of these weevils (Curculio pleurostigma Marsh., 
Rynchenus sulcicollis Gyll.) and I have little donbt that the same insects, 
er species allied to them, cause the clubbing of the roots of cabbages.’ It 
seems to be a beetle of the same family that is figured by Reaumur® as 
causing the galls on the leaves of the lime-tree. Mr. Westwood has 
traced the transformations of a minute species of Balaninus, which resides 
in the large and fleshy galls on the leaves of willows, occasionally in com- 
pany with the larvae of Nematus intercus; Bouché has also described the 
larva of Balaninus salicivorus Schon., which is found in the galls on the 
leaves of Salix vitellina, and that of Gymnetron villosulus, which lives in a 
gall formed on Veronica beccabunga. According to Hammerschmidt Cleopus 
-affinis also resides in galls upon the roots of Sinapis arvensis, Cleonus Li- 
narié in galls at the roots of Anlirrhinum Linarie, and Baris cerulescens in 
the stems of Reseda lutea, all in their larva state*; and Mr. Perris has 
obtained an Apion (A. ulicicola P.) from galls on the young branches of 
Ulex nanus®, an interesting fact, as proving, with a similar one observed 
by Mr. Westwood as to Apion Radiolum which he found undergoing its 
transformations in the stems of the hollyhock®, that all the species of this 
genus do not pass their larva state in the interior of seeds as most of them 
do, Other galls owe their origin to moths as those resembling a nutmeg 
1 De Insectis, 233, &e. 
2 Mr, Westwood informs us that he has not detected any other larve in the clubs 
at the roots of cabbages than those of a species of Muscide (Anthomyia brassic@), 
and which had evidently been produced from eggs laid in crevices of the already 
formed clubs. 
5 Reaum. iii. t. 88. f. 2, 3. 
4 Bouché Naturgesch, &c. and Hammerschmidt Observ. Physiol. Pathol. de Plant. 
Gallarum Ortu, quoted in Westwood’s Modern Classif. i. 842. I have some sus- 
picion that a little weevil, Leiosoma ovatula, of which T found ten or twelve early in 
the spring of 1842, near Bristol, under the leaves of Ranunculus bulbosus, which they 
had pierced with numerous holes, may reside in the larva state in galls on the root 
of this plant. 
5 Ann. Sov, Ent. de France, ix. 90. 6 Westwood, ubi supra, i. 3376 
