BEETLE-GALLS. 
3*3 
leaves at the extremity of a bunch neatly folded up in a bundle, 
but not quite so closely as is usual in the case of leaf-rolling 
caterpillars. On opening them up, there was no caterpillar to 
be seen, the centre being occupied with a roundish, brown- 
coloured, woody substance, similar to some excrescences made 
by gall insects ( Cynips ). 
‘ Had we been aware of its real nature, we should have put it 
immediately under a glass, or in a box, till the contained insect 
had developed itself; but instead of this, we opened the ball, 
where we found a small yellow grub coiled up, and feeding on 
the exuding juices of the tree. As we could not replace the 
grub in its cell, part of the wall of which we had unfortunately 
broken, we put it in a small pasteboard-box with a fresh shoot 
of hawthorn, expecting that it might construct a fresh cell. 
This, however, it was probably incompetent to perform ; it did 
not, at least, make the attempt, and neither did it seem to feed 
on the fresh branch, keeping in preference to the ruins of its 
former cell. 
4 To our great surprise, although it was thus exposed to the 
air, and deprived of a considerable portion of its nourishment, 
both from the fact of the cell having been broken off, and from 
the juices of the branch having been dried up, the insect went 
through its regular changes, and appeared in the form of a small 
greyish brown beetle of the weevil family. 
‘ The most remarkable circumstance in the case in question, 
was the apparent inability of the grub to construct a fresh cell 
after the first was injured, — proving, we think, beyond a doubt, 
that it is the puncture made by the parent insect when the egg 
is deposited that causes the exudation and subsequent concretion 
of the juices forming the gall.’ Although the insect in question 
succeeded in attaining the perfect state, it would probably be 
of stunted growth in consequence of the deprivation of food. 
Such, at all events, is the case with insects of other orders, 
when their supply of food is at all checked while they are in 
the larval state. 
There is another weevil, scientifically called Cleonus sulci - 
