Note 3 — CHAP. II. OF THE EGGS, LARVÆ, AND PUPÆ OF ANTS.

To these insects we are indebted for that valuable article of commerce, the gall-nut. The Cynips is furnished with a finely-pointed instrument, with which it wounds the leaves and other parts of the tree, for the sake of depositing its eggs. The puncture of the leaves, &c. gives rise to those excrescences termed galls, which not only form the habitation, for a considerable period, of the infant insect, but serve it the whole time of its imprisonment for food. On examining the galls, some will be found to have an opening in them; these are they, from which the fly has escaped: others, that want this aperture, will be found to contain the insect, either in its larva, pupa, or imago state; for it appears these several changes, at least with some of the species, take place within the body of the gall.—T.