12 ) 
NATURE NOTES. 
Many of the galls are mere little pimples upon the surface of 
the leaves, swellings not much larger than a pin’s head ; others 
rise to more like the size, and very like the colour, of small ripe 
apples and pears. Sometimes the whole of the leaf is studded 
so thickly with small protuberances that scarcely a bit of the 
natural surface is discernible ; we have ourselves counted one 
hundred such swellings upon the quarter of a moderate-sized 
leaf. The large ones will often repose in solitary grandeur, 
tlieir red and yellow cheeks showing off beautifully against the 
dark green of their support. Sometimes the leaf will be pierced 
too near the edge, and will then fail to close up at one end, 
forming a pretty cup. The inhabitants of these vegetable 
bladders are themselves very quaint looking. With a very flat 
body, quite black upon the upper surface and white and fluffy 
underneath, they scuttle and roll about in extreme panic upon 
being disturbed, and evince the greatest agility in eluding 
scientific observation. 
Many of the twigs of our young trees are swollen from the 
attacks of the saw-fl}', and the veins in some of the leaves are 
hard and knotty from the same cause. If we carefully slice off 
a piece from the top of one of these woody veins, we expose to 
view a series of cells, each of which contains a minute, yellow, 
fat, helpless-looking grub, very like a baby in a cradle. There 
are on some leaves of these gums, small oval reddish bodies, 
which, if pressed, exude a thick red liquid. They are probably 
a species of aphis in one stage of its metamorphosis, for the ants 
are constantly running up and down the stems of these saplings 
in search of honeydew, and nothing else in the way of aphides 
is visible. 
At times one or other of the young trees is afflicted with a sort 
of smut, the twigs and many of the lower leaves being covered 
with fine black dust, and the whole tree presenting a drooping 
and forlorn appearance. This black substance is a fungus, which 
adheres to and grows in the honeydew dropped from the aphides 
which are living in the upper part, upon the lower leaves and 
branches ; the breathing pores are thus choked up and the un- 
healthy condition of the plant is attested by its woe-begone 
look. The ravages of the small mining caterpillars are visible 
everywhere upon the broad leaves of these saplings. The 
attacks of one species will be marked by irregular white streaks, 
extending nearly the length of the leaf ; others produce white 
patches, while others still fasten the leaves together with threads, 
and in this snug enclosure will eat away the top surface of both 
leaves. 
There is a little, squat, dark-coloured spider, shaped very 
like a triangle, which lives in a curled-up corner of a leaf, and 
scuttles off very quickl}', sideways, like a crab, on his home 
being broken into. There is a very remarkable isosceles triangle 
of a spider, whose body is quite a work of art ; the ground- 
colour is terra-cotta, and this is inlaid with white, forming a 
