258 TWO YOUNG NATURALISTS. 



The leaves fell around as thick as hail, bringing 

 down with them an abundant supply of spiders, 

 caterpillars, earwigs, and insects of all sorts, which 

 rapidly took to flight in various directions, being 

 fortunate if the young collector did not arrest them in 

 their night, and place them in his box as if in a 

 prison. 



It is surprising what a world may be found on an 

 oak-tree; and each species and variety of the tree 

 has on its various parts its special guests, to give the 

 list of whose names would, however, carry us too far. 

 But in the first place there is the numerous host of 

 beetles or Coleoptera ; the stag-beetles whose larvae 

 live in the old wood of large trees ; and the Anobia ; 

 also Orchestes, which, less ambitious, contents itself 

 with the twigs and leaves ; Balaninus glandium, to 

 which the acorns serve as food and abode ; some 

 Chrysomelidae, that attack the young shoots ; while 

 nearer to the ground and on the underwood, Silphse 

 and Calosomatae carry on a war of extermination 

 against the processionary caterpillars. 



In the world of Lepidoptera the frequenters of the 

 oak may be said to be legion. Many amongst them 

 are so intimately connected with this tree, and belong 

 so entirely to it, as to receive their names from it : 

 Thecla quercus, Botnbyx quercus, Tortrix qucrcus, and 

 others. 



But of all these denizens the most surprising in its 



