( 2254 ) 
A Confiderable Accompt touching Vegetable Excrefcencies, given 
by that Learned and Obferving Gentleman , Mr. Martin 
Lifter, in a Letter to the Publijher^ ^'Z July !/♦ 1671. jrom 
York. 
I Underftand by yours of the 23^^ inftaot,that lA^Ray cannot 
without much trouble retrieve the Letter, wherein I gave 
him formerly ray opinion concerning Vegetable Excrefcencies 5 
and yet not wholly to deny you the fatisfa&ion of what you 
feera much to defire^l am willing to think again upon the fame 
fubjed:, at leaft to recoliefl: part of my former thoughts,as my 
memory will ferve me. 
The occafion then of that Letter was upon the account gi- 
ven us by You in Numb^ 57, of the opinion of the Italian 
J{edi; Fi!{.that fome Hve Plants or their Excrefcencies do truly 
generate fome Infeds* To which opinion of F,l^di I told my 
friend, as I remember, that I indeed had obferved, that the 
By-fruits of fome Vegetables, as of the Oak ^nd wild J{pfe^ for 
example, did grow up together with their refpcdtive worms 
in them from fraall beginnings to fair and large fruit, fome of 
them emulatfng even the genuin ofPfpring of the plant, 
* ■ ^ miratur non [ua poma^ 
And further, that I did believe, the worms were furniflied with 
food in and from them 5 but not by any Navil-connexion, as 
that Author fancies, and which I faid,to me was unintelligible, 
and that I fhould be glad of a notion,which might make out to 
me fuch monftrous relation, as half animal half vegetable, or 
which is all one. Vegetable veflTels inferted into an animal, or, 
the contrary* Strange Oeconomy ! 
That it had never been my good fortune (what ever dili- 
gence I had ufed) to difcero Eggs in the Center of Galls^ but a 
worm conflantly, even at the very firft appearance, as near 
atleaflas my fortune led me* Yet I would not deny, but 
that diligence might one day difcover the egg it fclf, which I 
was of opinion was affixed to or near the place by the parent- 
Infefl*, where the Gal! rofe* 
That I ever found the worms in all the excrefcencies,that I 
had 
