*fke Natural History of Selborne 449 



retire to another part of the lake, perhaps to deposit their 

 fetus in quiet; hence the sexes are found separate, except 

 where generation is going on. From the multitude of minute 

 young of all gradations of sizes, these insects seem without 

 doubt to be viviparous. WHITE. 



PHAL^INA QUERCUS. 



MOST of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the Holt in 

 general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars of a small 

 Phalcvna, which is of a pale yellow colour. These insects, 

 though a feeble race, yet, from their infinite numbers, are 

 of wonderful effect, being able to destroy the foliage of whole 

 forests and districts. At this season they leave their aurelia, 

 and issue forth in their fly-state, swarming and covering the 

 trees and hedges. 



In a field at Greatham I saw a flight of swifts busied in 

 catching their prey near the ground, and found they were 

 hawking after these Phalcence. The aurelice of this moth is 

 shining and as black as jet, and lies wrapped up in a leaf of 

 the tree, which is rolled round it, and secured at the ends by 

 a web, to prevent the maggot from falling out. WHITE. 



I suspect that the insect here meant is not the Phalcena 

 quercus, but the Phalcena viridata, concerning which I find 

 the following note in my " Naturalist's Calendar " for the 

 year 1785. 



About this time, and for a few days last past, I observed the 

 leaves of almost all the oak-trees in Denn copse to be eaten and 

 destroyed, and, on examining more narrowly, saw an infinite 

 number of small beautiful pale green moths flying about the 

 trees ; the leaves of which that were not quite destroyed were 

 curled up, and withinside were the exuvice or remains of the 

 chrysalis, from whence I suppose the moths had issued, and 

 whose caterpillar had eaten the leaves. MARKWICK. 



2 F 



