384 



HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



a beetle of the same family that is figured by Reaumur^ as 

 causing the galls on the leaves of the lime-tree. Mr. West- 

 wood 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 company with the larvae of 

 Nematus inter cus ; Bouche has also described the larva of Ba- 

 laninus salicivorus Schon., which is found in the galls on the 

 leaves of Salix vitellina, and that of Gymncetron villosulus, 

 which lives in a gall formed on Veronica heccahunga. Ac- 

 cording to Hammerschmidt, Cleopus affinis also resides in galls 

 upon the roots of Sinapis arvensis, Cleonus LinaricB in galls 

 at the roots of Antirrhinum Linarice, and Baris ccBrulescens 

 in the stems of Reseda lutea, all in their larva state ^ ; and 

 M. 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 which Keaumur received from 

 Cyprus ^ ; and others again to two- winged flies, as the woody 

 galls of the thistle caused by Trypeta Cardui^, and the cot- 

 tony galls found on ground ivy, wild thyme, &c., as well as a 

 very singular one on the juniper resembling a flower, de- 

 scribed by De Geer*^, all which are the work of minute gall- 

 gnats (^CecidotnyicB Latr.). Some of these last convert even 

 the flowers of plants into a kind of galls, as T. Loti of De 

 Geer^, which inhabits the blossoms of Lotus corniculatus ; 

 and one which I have myself observed to render the flowers of 

 Erysimum Barharea like a hop blossom. A similar monstrous 



1 Reaum. iii. t. 38. f. 2, 3. 



2 Bouche Naturgesch, &c. and Hammerschmidt Observ. Physiol. Pathol, de Plant. 

 Gallarum ortu, quoted in Westwood's Modern Classif. i. 342. I have some sus- 

 picion that a little weevil, Leiosoma ovatula, of which I found ten or twelve early 

 in the spring 1 842, near Bristol, under the leaves of Ranunculus hulbosus, which 

 they had pierced with numerous holes, may reside in the larva state in galls on 

 the root of this plant. 



3 Anyi. Sac. Ent. de France, ix. 90. 4 Westwood, ubi supra, i. 337. 

 5 Reaum. iii. 448. 6 Ibid. 455. 7 De Geer, vi. 409. 

 8 De Geer, vi.421. 



