galleruca

Updated: April 30, 2025

The official views both layman and priest with contempt and aversion; both are equally his prey, both equally his profit: he lives by them and on them, as the galleruca does on the elm-tree, whose foliage it devours, but he despises them because they are not officials, as the galleruca doubtless, if it can think, despises the elm. Of course his absence could not be hidden from any in his parish.

Ouida - The Waters of Edera