t for fancy.
This gall-fly is a sort of cousin to the wasps, but what we would call
its sting is more than a mere sting. Like a sting, it seems to puncture
the bark or leaf, and at the same time probably to inject its drop of
venom; but at the same time it conveys to the depths of the wound a tiny
egg, or perhaps a host of them. One gall-fly is thus a magician in
chemistry, at least, for no sooner are these eggs deposited than the
wounded branch begins to swell and form a cellular growth or tumor about
them, the character of this abnormal growth depending upon the peculiar
charm of the venomous touch--to one a tiny coral globe, to another a
cluster of spines, to another a curved horn, and to our cynips of the
white or scrub oak a peculiar globular spongy growth which completely
envelops the stem, sometimes to the size of a small apple. In its prime
it is a beautiful object, with its fibrous glistening texture studded
with pink points. But this condition lasts but a few days, when the
entire mass becomes brownish and woolly, which fact has given this
insect the common name of "wool-sower."

[Illustration: THE REAL FAIRY OF THE OAK SPONGE.

A. One of the points detached. B. Section of the base.
C, D. Cynips emerging.]

And now we must lose no time if we would follow its history to its
complete cycle. If we put one of these faded sponges in a tight-closed
box, we shall in a few days learn the secret of its being. For this
singular mimic fruit, which has sprung at the behest of the gall-fly,
like other fruits, has its seeds--seeds which are animated with peculiar
life, and which sprout in a way we would hardly expect. Within a
fortnight after gathering, perhaps, we find our box swarming with tiny
black flies, while if we dissect the sponge we find its long-beaked
seeds entirely empty, and each with a clean round hole gnawed through
its shell, explaining this host of gall-flies, all similar to the parent
of a few weeks since, and all bent on the same mischief when you shall
let them loose at the window.

The beautiful sponge of the sweet-brier has been called into being by
exactly similar means. And its hard woody centre is packed full of
cells, at first each with its tiny egg, and then with its plump larva,
followed by the chrysalis, and at length by the emergence of the
full-fledged _Cynips rosae_.

This sponge-gall of the rose is commonly known as the Bedegnar, and like
all other members of its tribe, as with the fa