98 RAMBLES OF 



trees, as to prevent all observation. Hither during the 

 hot season, I was accustomed to retire, for the purpose of 

 reading or meditation ; and within this deeeper solitude, 

 where all was solitary, very many of the subsequent 

 movements of my life were suggested or devised. 



From all I could observe, and all the enquiries I could 

 get answered, it appeared that this rapidly growing tree 

 does not attain its full growth until it is eighty or ninety 

 years old, nor does its time of full health and vigour much 

 exceed an hundred. Before this time it is liable to the 

 attacks of insects, but these are of a kind that bore the 

 tender spring shoots to deposit their eggs therein, and 

 their larvae appear to live principally on the sap which is 

 very abundant, so that the tree is but slightly injured. 

 But after the pine has attained its acme, it is attacked 

 by an insect which deposits its egg in the body of the 

 tree, and the larva devours its way through the solid 

 substance of the timber; so that after a pine has been for 

 one or two seasons subjected to these depredators, it will 

 be fairly riddled, and if cut down is unfit for any other 

 purpose than burning. Indeed, if delayed too long, it is 

 poorly fit for firewood, so thoroughly do these insects 

 destroy its substance. At the same time that one set of 

 insects is engaged in destroying the body, myriads of 

 others are at work under the bark, destroying the sap 

 vessels, and the foliage wears a more and more pale and 

 sickly appearance as the tree declines in vigour. If not 

 cut down, it eventually dies, becomes leafless, stripped of 



