UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 121 



those principal species, much confusion has taken 

 place in their names." 



i. When Mary and I were in the garden 

 to-day, I observed a very odd appearance on the 

 under surface of some of the leaves of a pear- 

 tree ; they appeared thickly set with strange 

 little downy russet-coloured things like spines 

 growing out of the leaf, perpendicular to it, and 

 about a quarter of an inch in length, and very 

 little thicker than a pin, with a protuberance or 

 excrescence at the base. 



Mary was amused at my surprise, and told me 

 that they were the habitations of insects. She 

 then took one of these tubes off the leaf, and on 

 giving it a gentle squeeze, a minute caterpillar, 

 with a yellowish body and black head, came out 

 of the lower end ; for the head is always down- 

 wards. We examined the place from which she 

 had removed it, and I saw that there was a small 

 hollow in the outer skin and pulpy part of the 

 leaf, which had been eaten away by the cater- 

 pillar. It moves this little tube or tent from one 

 part of the leaf to the other, and eats no other 

 part than what the tent covers \ and when these 

 insects are abundant, Mary says that every leaf 

 is covered with little withered specks, where they 

 have feasted themselves. 



The tube in which the caterpillar lives, is 



M 



