90 GREEN OAK-MOTH. 



A larger moth, with a yellow tail and snow-white body 

 and wings, is also very destructive to white-thorn hedges ; 

 but its proceedings have already been so accurately told, 

 that I will not repeat them. This moth is appropriately 

 called the " YELLOW-TAIL."* A kind very similar in its 

 ways to the little ermine moth inhabits the oaks, and some- 

 times in such swarms as to consume every leaf, and incase 

 all the twigs in a continuous web for hundreds of acres ; I 

 have noticed this in Surrey and Sussex on three occasions, 

 and once in part of Shropshire and Herefordshire. In the 

 July of 1831 the oak-woods about Downton Castle, the 

 residence of the late Mr. Knight, the celebrated horticul- 

 turist, were as completely bare as on Christmas-day, and 

 had a most unnatural appearance ; the season was rather 

 late, and the moth was then in the chrysalis, as I ascer- 

 tained by climbing up some of the trees, and shaking down 

 whole showers of them. Early in the year the caterpillars 

 may be seen, when the sun is warm, hanging by their lit- 

 tle threads from all parts of almost every oak tree, swing- 

 ing to and fro with the least breath of air, like a lot of 

 pendulums, each varying in time according to the length 

 of its thread, which acts as the rod, and each occasionally 

 giving itself a twist, like a slack-rope dancer, in the over- 

 flowing joy and happiness of its little heart. Each turns 

 to a black chrysalis; and in ten days afterwards to a beau- 

 tiful, yes, exceedingly beautiful, pea-green, bell-shaped 

 little moth,f but too common to be valued for its beauty. 

 When the moth is on the wing the oaks again clothe them- 

 selves with all the fresh green of spring, and the woods 

 once more throw T off their wintry looks. 



* Arctia chrysorrhoca. E. N. f Tortrix viridanus. E. N. 



