Ox gall

“ A Celtic or megalithic monument, more commonly called Tumulus.
Galiot, Galliot (dimin. of galère) . A ship moved by both sails and oars.
Gall (A.S. gealla) . In an animal, a bitter yellowish green fluid secreted by the gall-bladder. Ox-gall, clarified by boiling with animal charcoal and filtering, is used in water-colour and in ivory painting to make the colours spread more evenly upon the paper, ivory, &c.: mixed with gum-arabic it thickens, and fixes the colours. A coating of it sets black-lead or crayon drawings. ”

“ The appearance of the human spleen is narrow and long, like that of the hog. Generally speaking, and in most animals, the liver is not furnished with a gall, though this is found in some animals. The human liver is round, like that of the ox. This is the case also in animals offered for sacrifice, as in the district of Chalcis, in Eubœa, where the sheep have no gall, and in Naxos it is so large in nearly all the animals, that strangers who come to sacrifice are surprised, and think that it is ominous, and not at all natural. ”

“ The characters of galls are constant, and as a rule exceedingly diagnostic, even when, as in the case of ten different gall-gnats of an American willow, Salix humilis, it is difficult or impossible to tell the full-grown insects that produce them from one another. In degree of complexity of internal structure galls differ considerably. Some are monothalamous, and contain but one larva of the gall-maker, whilst others are many-celled and numerously inhabited. ”

“ For the larvae of their makers the galls provide shelter and sustenance. The exciting cause of the hypertrophy, in the case of the typical galls, appears to be a minute quantity of some irritating fluid, or virus, secreted by the female insect, and deposited with her egg in the puncture made by her ovipositor in the cortical or foliaceous parts of plants. This virus causes the rapid enlargement and subdivision of the cells affected by it, so as to form the tissues of the gall. ”

“ The young gall is in fact a callus enclosing the living larva, and it is the continued irritation of the latter which keeps up the stimulation. The final shape and constitution of the gall depend on mutual reactions—not as yet explained in detail—between the species of plant and the species of gall-insect concerned, as may readily be seen from the extraordinary variations in size, shape, colouring, hairiness and other structural peculiarities of the galls on one species of, for instance, the common oak. ”

“ Cotypes.—Cotype females, males, and galls in The American Museum of Natural History, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
This gall is the better-known form of the species, due apparently to its longer persistence on the tree. The gall very closely resembles that of Neuroterus batatus batatus, from specimens of which it is often difficult to distinguish this species. The more highly distinct larval cells of noxiosus is often a good basis for making the distinction. ”

“ Often the gall bears no visible resemblance to the structures out of which it is developed; commonly, however, outside the larval chamber, or gall proper, and giving to the gall its distinctive form, are to be detected certain more or less modified special organs of the plant. The gall of Cecidomyia strobilina, formed from willow-buds, is mainly a rosette of leaves the stalks of which have had their growth arrested. ”

“ Their formation from buds which normally would have yielded leaves and shoots is explained by Parfitt as the outcome of an effort at fructification induced by oviposition, such as has been found to result in several plants from injury by insect-agency or otherwise. [6] Galls vary remarkably in size and shape according to the species of their makers. The polythalamous gall of Aphilothrix radicis, found on the roots of old oak-trees, may attain the size of a man’s fist ”

“ From the extreme bitterness of the secretion, “gall,” like the Lat. fel, is used for anything extremely bitter, whether actually or metaphorically. From the idea that the gall-bladder was the dominating organ of a bitter, sharp temperament, “gall” was formerly used in English for such a spirit, and also for one very ready to resent injuries. It thus survives in American slang, with the meaning “impudence” or “assurance.”
“Gall,” meaning a sore or painful swelling, especially on a horse, may be the same word, derived from an early use of the word as meaning “poison.” ”

“ The convex side of the gills is furnished with fringed fleshy fibres, of a strong red colour when the fish is healthy; the concave side, which is next the mouth, is furnished with long serrated spines. The heart is placed in a cavity near the gills, above the stomach; it is three sided, and consists of a single auricle and ventricle. The œsophagus, or gullet, is remarkably short in proportion to the size of the fish; the stomach is thin, membranous, and capable of great distension. The gut is of uniform size throughout. The gall bladder is small, and of a dark-green colour ”

“ Among the numerous insects parasitic on the inhabitants of galls are hymenopterous flies of the family Proctotrypidae, and of the family Chalcididae, e.g. Callimome regius, the larva of which preys on the larvae of both Cynips glutinosa and its lodger Synergus facialis. The oak-apple often contains the larvae of Braconidae and Ichneumonidae, which Von Schlechtendal (loc. sup. cit. p. 33) considers to be parasites not on the owner of the gall, Andricus terminalis, but on inquilinous Tortricidae. Birds are to be included among the enemies of gall-insects. ”

“ The gall of Andricus palustris palustris is one of the best-known of the galls of early spring, appearing abundantly on red oaks of many species, often before any leaves have appeared. They often crowd closely on the flowers of the oaks. When the galls first appear they are solid, with the larval cell distinct but entirely connected with the outer walls of the gall ”

“ The pincushion galls on young white oaks are now among the most beautiful objects in the woods,—coarse, woolly, white, spotted with bright red or crimson on the exposed side. It is remarkable that a mere gall, which at first we are inclined to regard as something abnormal, should be made so beautiful, as if it were the flower of the tree; that a disease, an excrescence, should prove, perchance, the greatest beauty, as the tear of the pearl; beautiful scar let sins they may be. Through our temptations, aye, and our falls, our virtues appear. ”

“ Only experience with each species, involving continued observation of specimens of the galls, and obtaining of such information as may be supplied by the size of the gall, the degree of development shown by the insect within the gall, etc., can supply information of the approach of the emergence date for a particular species. Most of the solid, hard, woody, or dry-shelled galls may be kept successfully for many months, but the adults of soft, spongy, or hollow, succulent galls cannot be raised if the galls are gathered more than a week or even a few days before the insects are due to emerge. ”

“ Medicinal Uses. Galls are most powerfully astringent. The native practitioners of India not only administer them as astringents in dysentery, but as tonics in cases of intermittent fever. Forms of Exhibition. In that of powder; and in combination with other astringents (Form. 51,) or with aromatics and bitters. As a local remedy the gall-nut enters into gargles and injections; for blind piles, an ointment composed of 21⁄2 parts of finely powdered galls, and a small portion of opium, with three parts of simple ointment as an excipient, offers a very valuable resource. ”

“ The conic forms are as though the tip was pulled out destroying the fovea. These often measure 5 mm. in height. The width of the galls varies from 3-5 mm. Very light green, or when older yellow to red, surface roughened with low tubercles as seen with lens. Inner chamber sub-conic with short mucronate tip. Walls of both chambers thin and smooth, outer wall slightly sticky. Base of gall flat, arising from a definite pedicel, resting in a cup-like depression, which is formed in a definite hyperplasia intercalated in the leaf. Above, this hyperplasia is evident as a raised circular area, 21⁄2 mm. ”

“ There are some authors who say that the gall exists in the horse, not in the liver, but in the paunch, and that in the stag it is situate either in the tail or the intestines; and that hence it is, that those parts are so bitter that dogs will not touch them. The gall, in fact, is nothing else but the worst parts of the blood purged off, and for this reason it is that it is so bitter: at all events, it is a well-known fact, that no animal has a liver unless it has blood as well. The liver receives the blood from the heart, to which it is united, and then disperses it in the veins. ”

“ Galls are formed by insects of several orders. Among the Hymenoptera are the gall-wasps (Cynips and its allies) , which infect the various species of oak. They are small insects, having straight antennae, and a compressed, usually very short abdomen with the second or second and third segments greatly developed, and the rest imbricated, and concealing the partially coiled ovipositor. ”

“ Hyperplasia or excessive cell proliferation results (probably not until after the larva has emerged from the egg) forming at first a saucer-shaped structure, then cup-shaped and finally by the ingrowth of the edges, the gall becomes a closed structure enveloping the larva in a chamber. The distal growth, seldom if ever in the hickory forms, proceeds so far as to obliterate the opening which was so prominent in the very immature cup-shape stage. Hence in practically all galls of this type a minute canal or pore can be demonstrated at the distal end. ”

“ Thus the galls of Cynips and its allies are inhabited by members of other cynipideous genera, as Synergus, Amblynotus and Synophrus; and the pine-cone-like gall of Salix strobiloides, as Walsh has shown, [30] is made by a large species of Cecidomyia, which inhabits the heart of the mass, the numerous smaller cecidomyidous larvae in its outer part being mere inquilines. In many instances the lodgers are not of the same order of insects as the gall-makers. Some saw-flies, for example, are inquilinous in the galls of gall-gnats and some gall-gnats in the galls of saw-flies. ”

“ Galls grow with extraordinary rapidity, and it is said that they attain their full size in a few days (23/50. Kirby and Spence 'Entomology' 1818 volume 1 page 450; Lacaze- Duthiers ibid page 284.) ; it is certain that they are almost completely developed before the larvae are hatched. Considering that many gall-insects are extremely small, the drop of secreted poison must be excessively minute; it probably acts on one or two cells alone, which, being abnormally stimulated, rapidly increase by a process of self-division. ”

“ On leaf, under side, rather large conic gall, whose distal 1⁄2-1⁄3 constitutes a very slender apical process. Through this passes the fine canal leading to the depressed, sub-globular chamber in the proximal part of the gall. The galls are either erect or more generally tilted to one side, always arising from one of the larger veins. 5-8 mm. long, 21⁄2-31⁄2 mm. wide at base. Outline of the flaring sessile base generally angular. Attenuate distal portion turning dark early. Light greenish yellow to brown when old. Smooth. Walls of chamber thick. ”

“ When massed they form a conspicuous brown, hairy structure, suggesting a huge caterpillar. The isolated galls are sub-globular to round-conic with or without a small [Pg 51] terminal nipple. 3-5 mm. vertical diameter, 3-5 mm. wide. Interiorly the chamber of the isolated form is depressed, this fact being associated with that of the thick distal wall. Gall chamber surrounded by definite sclerenchyma layer. Cortical tissue firm. Attached by irregular process from leaf extending into base of gall. ”

“ The dipterous gall-formers include the gall-midges, or gall-gnats (Cecidomyidae) , minute slender-bodied insects, with bodies usually covered with long hairs, and the wings folded over the back. Some of them build cocoons within their galls, others descend to the ground or become pupae. The true willow-galls are the work either of these or of saw-flies. Their galls are to be met with on a great variety of plants of widely distinct genera, e.g. ”

“ To make a horse-poultice bag sew two pieces of soft tough material together in the form of a common shot-bag, closing both ends and sides; fasten a wide soft string to each corner, cut a straight slit in one face of the bag, and through it thrust the mixed poultice material until it is nearly full, when it can be secured over the seat of injury. Animals obtained from natives not unfrequently suffer from a peculiar description of gall, known as a “sitfast.” Examination shows an irregular piece of dry, hard, dead skin, surrounded by a border or channel of sore. ”

“ To a limited extent the form of the gall does depend upon the plant tissue involved, for the possible transformations, as we have already pointed out (Kinsey 1923:21) , are more restricted in certain tissues; but beyond that the form of the gall is dependent upon the species of the insect rather than upon the species of the plant. There must be nearly as many different kinds of gall-producing enzymes as there are species of gall wasps. When a single species of gall maker attacks more than one species of oak, the form of the gall is essentially the same on all of the hosts. ”

“ Often all types of galls are crowded onto a single leaf, but occasionally a particular tree will have a preponderance of one type, and on several occasions we have found isolated trees well covered, as far as we could discover, with galls of only a single extreme type. ”