208 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



trees for some miles round were so totally consumed by 

 them, that at Midsummer the country wore the aspect 

 of the depth of winter^. 



But the criminals to whom it is principally owing that 

 our groves are sometimes stripped of the green robe of 

 summer, are the various tribes of Lepidoptera, myriads 

 of whose caterpillars, in certain seasons, despoil whole 

 districts of their beauty, and our walks of all their 

 pleasure. In 1731 the oaks in France were terribly de- 

 vastated by the larva of Bomb?/x dispar, F.*", and in 1 797 

 many of the pine forests about Bayreuth suffered a si- 

 milar injury from that of B. 3fonacha, F.*^ Noctua bru' 

 mata, F. is also a fearful enemy to the foliage of almost 

 every kind of tree '^ The woods in certain provinces of 

 North America are in some years entirely stripped by 

 that of another moth, which eats all kinds of leaves. 

 This happening at a time of the year when the heat is 

 most excessive is attended by fatal consequences. For, 

 being deprived of the shelter of their foliage, whole 

 forests are sometimes entirely dried up and ruined^. — 

 The brown-tail-moth, before alluded to, which occa- 

 sionally bares our hawthorn hedges^ has been rendered 

 famous by the alarm it caused to the inhabitants of the 

 vicinity of the metropolis in 1782, when rewards were 

 offered for collecting the caterpillars, and the church- 

 wardens and overseers of the parishes attended to see 

 them burnt by bushels. — You may have observed per- 

 haps in some cabinets of foreign insects an ant, the head 

 of which is very large in proportion to the size of its 

 body, with a piece of leaf in its mouth many times bigger 



* Philos. Trans, xtx. 741. " Reaum. i. 38T. 



' fVicncrVerzcich.Svo.ld. " De Geer,ii.452. "Kalm's rrat;<;^-,ii.T. 



