344 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



carpenter. Again, observe that single branch (Fig. 2) : it 

 looks as .though blasted by lightning; it is no such thing: 

 that branch has yielded to the unceasing efforts of some 

 irrepressible carpenter who has laboured in silence and in 

 darkness, and daylight exhibits the effects. 



But there is more than this. Every now and then, as the 

 dawdling train crawls into one of its numerous stopping- 

 places, groaning as if in commiserative sympathy with its 

 wretched shareholders, the observer, now that his alteniion 

 has been called to the subject, will see a totally leafless tree 





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Fiar. 1. 



(Fig. 3) standing up in its desolate grandeur as a memento 

 mori to all the exuberant greenery around it. That solemn 

 warning is the work of the goat-moth ; and it will be difficult 

 for the man who has denied, doubted, questioned, disputed, 

 and finally been forced to admit this fact, — it will be difficult 

 for such a one to overrate its importance. He will see in 

 these dead and dying trees evidences of an insidious power 

 working in secret, and one with which he knows not how to 

 contend. This enemy is like the thief who comes in the 

 night while men sleep. 



