Natural history of insects : comprising their architecture, transformations, senses, food, habits--collection, preservation and arrangement . were anxious to watch the proceedings of theseflies in the deposition ot their eggs, and the subse-quent developments of the gall-growths; and endea-voured for that purpose to procure a small oak plantin a garden-pot; but we did not succeed in this: andthough they alighted on rose and sweet-briar trees,which we placed in their way, we never observed thatthey deposited any eggs upon them. In a week ortwo the whole brood died, or disappeared.* There are so
Natural history of insects : comprising their architecture, transformations, senses, food, habits--collection, preservation and arrangement . were anxious to watch the proceedings of theseflies in the deposition ot their eggs, and the subse-quent developments of the gall-growths; and endea-voured for that purpose to procure a small oak plantin a garden-pot; but we did not succeed in this: andthough they alighted on rose and sweet-briar trees,which we placed in their way, we never observed thatthey deposited any eggs upon them. In a week ortwo the whole brood died, or disappeared.* There are some galls, formed on low-growingplants, which are covered with down, hair, or wool,though by no means so copiously as the one whichwe have just described. Among the plants so affectedare the germander speedwell, wild-thyme, ground-ivy, and others, to which we shall afterwards advert. The well-known oak-apple is a very pretty exampleof the galls formed by insects; and this, when com-pared with other galls which form on the oak, shewsthe remarkable difference produced on the same plantby the punctures of insects of different species. The. Oak-oppk galls, one being cut open to sAetu the vessels i-unning togranules. J. R. GALL-FLIES. 385 oak-apple is commonly as large as a walnut or smallapple, rounded, but not quite spiierical, the surfacebeing irregularly depressed in various places. Theskin is smooth, and tinged with red and yellow, like aripe apple; and at the base there is, in the earher partof the summer, a calyji or cup of five or six smallbrown scaly leaves; but these fall off as the season ad-vances. If an oak-apple be cut transversely, there isbrought into view a number of oval granules, each con-taining a grub, and embedded in a fruit-looking fleshysubstance, having fibres running through it. As thesefibres, however, run in the direction of the stem, theyare best exhibited by a vertical section of the gall;and this also shows the remarkable peculiarity ofeach fibre termin
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookidnaturalhistoryof01bos, booksubjectinsects
