Insect architecture / [Anon].

  • Rennie, James, 1787-1867.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insect architecture / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    408/444 (page 390)
    of the roots of cabbages, and the knob-like galls on turnips, called in some places the anbury. They are evidently beetles of an allied genus which form the woody galls sometimes met with on the leaves of the guelder-rose (Viburnum), the lime-tree (Tiha europea), and the beech (Fagus sylvatica). There are also some two-winged flies which pro- _ duce woody galls on various plants, such as the thistle-fly (Tephritis cardui, Larr.) The grubs of this pretty fly produce on the leaftstalks of thistles an oblong woody knob. On the common white briony (Bryonia dioica) of our hedges may be found a very pretty fly of this genus, of a yellowish brown colour, with pellucid wings, waved much like those of the thistle-fly with a yellowish brown. This fly lays its eggs near a joint of the stem, and the grubs live upon its substance. The joint swells out into an oval form, furrowed in several places, and the fly is subsequently disclosed. In its perfect state, it ieeds on the blossom of the briony.* Flies of another minute family, the gall-enats ( Cecidomyie, Larr.), pass the first stage of their existence mm the small globular cottony galls which abound on ger- mander speedwell (Veronica chamedrys), wild thyme (Thymus serpyllum), and ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea). The latter is by no means uncommon, and-may be readily recognised. 7 Certain species of plant-lice (phydes), whose com- plete history would require a volume, produce ex- crescences upon plants which may with some pro- priety be termed galls, or semi-galls. Some of these are without any aperture, whilst others are in form | of an inflated vesicle, with a narrow opening on the under side of a leaf, and expanding (for the most part irregularly) into a rounded knob on its upper —