114 OAK-LEAF ROLLERS. 



green and silver flitting or falling from the boughs around. 

 In the course of a few weeks repair to the same wood, and then 

 you will perceive, on the very boughs from whence you were 

 saluted by a living shower of pea-green wings, a few, or 

 perhaps a number, of the oak leaves curled up at the end, and 

 confined in a roll by braces of white silk. Look within the 

 scroll, and you will detect, in his lurking place, there feeding 

 at his ease, a little green caterpillar, dotted with black (or, if 

 later in the season, a brown chrysalis), the mischievous 

 descendant of one of those pretty pea-green moths, which 

 looked so harmless. But where, perhaps you will ask, is even 

 the caterpillar's great offence ? Rolling up an oak leaf and 

 gnawing a piece out of it may seem operations fraught with no 

 great mischief; but light as the sin and mischief may indi- 

 vidually be, they assume, by multiplication, a most ugly and 

 bare-faced aspect : for just as little sins in little people (often 

 self-excused on the ground of insignificance), suffice to dis- 

 figure the whole aspect of social \--so the united mischiefs of 

 these little leaf-rollers are sometimes sufficient to deface an 

 entire wood. That of " Oak of Honour/' near Shooter's 

 Hill, was, in one season, we are told by Mr. Kennie, deprived 

 of its verdure by no grander agency though this, perhaps, 

 may be an extreme case. The handsomest and largest species 

 of these pea-green moths of the oak have their upper wings 

 barred with white ; in both kinds the lower ane silvery grey, 

 and all elegantly fringed. The caterpillars of the larger sort, 



