I 



CATERPILLARS. 375 



that the people were happily released from the edict ; for it 

 soon became difficult to find a single individual of the 

 species.* In the same way the cold rains, during the 

 summer of 1829, seem to have nearly annihilated the 

 lackeys, which in the early part of the summer swarmed 

 on every hedge around London. The ignorance displayed 

 in France, at the ,time in question, was not inferior to that 

 recorded by Curtis; for the French journalists gravel}^ 

 asserted that part of the caterpillars were produced by 

 spiders; and that these spiders, and not the caterpillars, 

 constructed the webs of the slime of snails, which they 

 were said to have been seen collecting for the purpose ! 

 " Verily," exclaims Keaumur, " there is more ignorance in 

 our age than one might believe." 



It is justly remarked by Curtis, that the caterpillar of the 

 brown-tail moth is not so limited a feeder as some, nor so 

 indiscriminate as others ; but that it always confines itself 

 to trees or shrubs, and is never found on herbaceous plants, 

 whose low growth would seldom supply a suitable founda- 

 tion for its web. Hence the absurdity of supposing it 

 would attack the herbage of the field, and produce a famine 

 among cattle. Curtis says, it is found on the " hawthorn 

 most plentifully, oak the same, elm very plentifully, most 

 fruit-trees the same, black-thorn plentifully, rose-trees the 

 same, bramble the same, on the willow and poplar scarce. 

 None have been noticed on the elder, walnut, ash, fir, or 

 herbaceous plants. With respect to fruit-trees the injuries 

 they sustain are most serious, as, in destroying the blossoms 

 as yet in the bud, they also destroy the fruit in embryo ; 

 the owners of orchards, therefore, have great reason to be 

 alarmed." 



The sudden appearance of great numbers of these cater- 

 pillars in particular years, and their scarcity in others, is 

 in some degree explained by a fact stated by Mr. Salisbury. 

 " A gentleman of Chelsea," he says, " has informed me that 

 he once took a nest of moths and bred them ; that some of 

 the eggs came the first year, some the second, and others of 



* Reaumur, ii. p. 137. 



