268 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



friends and connections be their distance from us ever so great, 

 and supplies the means by which, to use the poet's language, 

 we can 



« give to airy nothing 



A local habitation and a name ! " 



enabling the poet, the philosopher, the politician, the moralist, 

 and the divine, to embody their thoughts for the amusement, 

 instruction, direction, and reformation of mankind. The in- 

 sect which produces the gall-nut is of the genus Cynips of 

 Linne, but was not known to him or to Fabricius. Olivier 

 first described it under the name of Diplolepis g allot tinctorics} 

 The galls originate on the leaves of a species of oak ( Quercus 

 infectorid) very common throughout Asia Minor, in many 

 parts of which they are collected by the poorer inhabitants, 

 and exported from Smyrna, Aleppo, and other ports in the 

 Levant, as well as from the East Indies, whither a part of 

 those collected are now carried. The galls most esteemed are 

 those known in commerce under the name of blue galls, being 

 the produce of the first gathering before the fly has issued 

 from the gall. It will not be uninteresting to you to know, 

 that from these when bruised may occasionally be obtained 

 perfect specimens of the insect, one of which I lately procured 

 in this way. The galls which have escaped the first searches, 

 and from most of which the fly has emerged, are called white 

 galls, and are of a very inferior quality, containing less of the 

 astringent principle than the blue galls in the proportion of 

 two to three.^ The white and blue galls are usually imported 

 mixed in about equal proportions, and are then called " galls 

 in sorts." If no substitute equal to galls as a constituent 

 part of ink has been discovered, the same may be said of these 

 productions as one of the most important of our dyeing ma- 

 terials constantly employed in dyeing black. It is true that 

 this colour may be communicated without galls, but not at 

 once so cheaply and effectually, as is found by their continued 

 large consumption, notwithstanding all the improvements in 

 the art of dyeing. 



1 Encychp. Insect, vi. 281. It had better, perhaps, as compound trivial 

 names are bad, be called Cynips Scriptorum. 



2 Olivier's Travels in Egypt, Sec. ii. 64. 



