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BRITISH FLOWERING PLANTS 



tallest forest trees, especially Oaks, and are very 

 difficult to capture. 



The hairy caterpillar of two large stout-bodied 

 moths feed on Oak. One of them is the Lappet 

 Moth {Gastropacha quercifolid). The caterpillar is 

 grey or brown, with two transverse blue bands 

 near the front of the body. The moth has brown 

 dentated wings, averaging 3 inches in expanse, and 

 is marked with transverse black lines. 



The Oak Eggar (Lasiocampa Quercus) derives its 

 name from the tough egg-shaped cocoon. The 

 caterpillar is brown, with white spots on the back 

 and sides. The moth is about the same size as 

 the last, but the wings are entire, tawny brown 

 with a yellow band in the male, and tawny with 

 a yellow border in the female. In the centre of 

 the forewings is a white spot. 



One of the commonest moths which lives on 

 Oaks is the Green Oak Tortrix {Tortrix viridand). 

 The forewings are green, less than an inch in 

 expanse, broad, and square at the tip ; the hind- 

 wings are rounded, and brown. It is a most 

 abundant insect, and often, when an oak bush 



is shaken, numbers of the moths will flutter down 

 to the ground, while the small green caterpillars 

 will drop themselves down and remain swinging 

 at the end of a long thread, waiting till the danger 

 seems to be past, when they will climb up again. 



The oak-shoots and leaves are very much 

 infested by galls and oak-apples, the former hard 

 and the latter soft excrescences produced by small 

 transparent-winged, four-winged flies, as a nidus 

 for their brood. These flies have generally very 

 smooth shining rounded red or black bodies. But, 

 in addition to the proper tenant, these galls are 

 infested by an enormous number of small parasites, 

 mostly belonging, like themselves, to the great 

 Order Hymenoptera, of which Bees, Wasps, and 

 Ants are more familiar examples. 



The Hazel, or Nut Tree {Corylus avel/ana), is 

 a bushy shrub 5 or 6 feet high, which grows 

 abundantly as underwood, or in hedges. The 

 leaves are nearly rounded, with denticulated edges, 

 and the flowers appear very early in the spring, the 

 male flowers being long yellow drooping catkins, 

 and the female flowers small, with short crimson 



