372 



RAVAGES OF INSECTS. 



other leaves, and even with those of the bird-cherry ; but 

 they would touch nothing except the seedling plum, re- 

 fusing the grafted varieties. (J. E.) 



A circumstance not a little remarkable in so very nice a 

 feeder is, that in some cases the mother moth will deposit 





Encampment of the caterpillar of the small ermine {Yjionomeuta imddkO on the 

 Siberian crab. 



her eggs upon trees not of indigenous growth, and not 

 even of the same genus with her usual favourites. Thus, 

 in 1825, the cherry-apple, or Siberian crab {Pi/riis pruuifoUa, 

 WiLLDENOw), so commonly grown in the suburbs of London, 

 swarmed with them. On a single tree at Islington we 

 counted above twenty nests, each of which would contain 

 from fifty to a hundred caterpillars ; and though these do 

 not grow thicker than a crow-quill, so many of them 

 scarcely left a leaf undevoured, and, of course, the fruit, 

 which showed abundantly in spring, never came to matu- 

 rit}^ The summer following they were still more abun- 

 dant on the hawthorn hedges, particularly near the Thames, 

 by Battersea and Richmond. Since then we have only 

 seen them sparingly ; and last summer we could onl}' find 



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