40 



THE OAK. 



(however contemptible it may appear to you) is 

 too trifling a matter for the care of the Ahnighty» 

 And here, too, it is particularly necessary that I 

 should advert to the all-fostering Providence of 

 God, because the deepest and most learned specu- 

 lations of human science are utterly at fault. 

 Wlij from the puncture of one kind of fly a large 

 irregular excrescence should be produced ; why 

 from that of another a smooth spherical gall, or a 

 scaly bud, or a flat circular scale, is all a mystery 

 — a mystery so deep that no plausible explanation 

 of it has ever been attempted. To say that an 

 alteration takes place in the character of the 

 juices ; that a disease is produced which arrests 

 them, and causes them to arrange themselves in a 

 certain set form — this is not to account for the 

 phenomenon ; it is merely an unsatisfactory state- 

 ment of the result, the real difficulty being left 

 untouched. You must therefore be content to 

 read the description of the different kinds of galls 

 which have been observed, and test its accuracy, 

 when you can, by comparing it with the natural 

 objects themselves. 



In the first place, it appears that the diff'erent 

 kinds of insects select different parts of the tree 

 in which to deposit their eggs, and that the cha- 

 racter of the galls produced equally varies. The 

 largest species is generally called the Oak-apple, 

 and grows on the extremity of a twig. It is of a 

 soft spongy substance, and an irregular shape, 

 shaded with browm and pink on the outside ; and 

 it is divided on the inside into a number of cells, 

 each of which contains either a small grub, a pupa, 

 or a perfect fly, according to the season. Gerard, 

 whose marvellous account of the Barnacle-goose 



