HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



381 



producing them were esteemed by the old botanists distinct 

 species. Of this kind is the Rose-icillow, which old Gerard 

 figures and describes as " not only making a gallant shew, but 

 also yeelding a most cooling aire in the heat of summer, being 

 set up in houses for the decking of the same." This willow 

 is nothing more than one of the common species, whose twigs, 

 in consequence of the deposition of the egg of a Cynips in 

 their summits, there shoot out into numerous leaves totally 

 dilFerent in shape from the other leaves of the tree, and 

 arranged not much unlike those composing the flower of a rose, 

 adhering to the stem even after the others fall oiF. Sir James 

 Smith mentions a similar lusus on the Provence willows, 

 which at first he took for a tufted lichen.^ From the same 

 cause the twigs of the common wild rose often shoot out into 

 a beautiful tuft of numerous reddish moss -like fibres wholly 

 dissimilar from the leaves of the plant, deemed by the old 

 naturalists a very valuable medical substance, to which they 

 erroneously gave the name of Bedeguar. None of these 

 variations is accidental or common to several of the tribe, but 

 each peculiar to the galls formed by a single and distinct 

 species of Cynips. 



The Poma Sodomitica, mala insana, or apples of the Dead 

 Sea, beautiful to the eye, but filling the mouth with bitter 

 ashes if tasted, whose existence, though mentioned by Tacitus, 

 Strabo, and Josephus, has been questioned by Riland, Maun- 

 drell, and Shaw, and respecting which numerous contradictory 

 and erroneous opinions by more recent authors have been 

 collected by Mr. Conder in his Modern Traveller, have at 

 length had their true history developed by the late venerable 

 vice-president of the Linneean Society, A. B. Lambert, Esq. ^, 

 Walter Elliot, Esq., and J. O. West wood, Esq.^ From their 

 combined observations, it has been ascertained that the Poma 

 Sodomitica are actual galls, two inches long and an inch and 

 a half in diameter, of a beautiful rich glossy purplish red ex- 

 teriorly, and filled with an intensely bitter, porous, and easily 

 pulverised substance, surrounding the insect ( Cynips insana 

 Westwood), which has given birth to them, and were found 



1 Introd. to Botany, 349. 



3 Trans. Ent. ^oc, Land. ii. 16. 



2 Linn. Trans, xvii. 445. 



