134 PLANTS AND ANIMALS. [CHAP. 



short before thickets where the stout young oaks are as bare 

 as in January, or show only the skeletons of leaves, where 

 caterpillars are still searching for some remnant of moist 

 green food. If we meet the country doctor in his rounds, 

 he says that he cannot ride in shaded roads without his hat 

 in the hot noon, because he finds hat and coat-collar thickly 

 strewn with caterpillars, which have dropped upon him as 

 he passed. In the parson's garden the gooseberry-bushes 

 show some withering fruit, but no foliage ; and instead, a 

 show of caterpillars actually covering every twig. In the 

 squire's pleasure-garden the ladies are mourning over their 

 roses, almost every petal of which is pierced, or the very 

 heart eaten out by some grub or fly. On any grassy bank 

 where the wayfarer would like to rest there is such a coating 

 of white grubs that he turns away in disgust. If we go out 

 in the moonlight, a dozen cockchafers knock against our faces 

 in five minutes; and we foresee the profusion of fat white 

 worms which will in consequence be turned up by the plough 

 next year. The wall fruit has already received the wound 

 which will turn to decay before the autumn, and the canker 

 is planted in the apples and pears, which will be deformed 

 and seamed, and hard, and without flavour at crop-time. 

 There never was a finer agricultural prospect but for this ; 

 but the farmer dreads seeing the mangel leaves blown and 

 corrupted by the vast families of grubs hidden in their sub- 

 stance, and the collars of the roots infested by big cater- 

 pillars, fattening on the sweet juices which he intended for 

 his cows. It is well if he knows that the rooks can help 

 him in this last case, and that they do not want to eat the 

 root, as he once believed, but the destroyers of the root. 

 These melancholy sights are not, however, all that is to be 

 seen. They present themselves in districts where there are 

 sparrow-clubs, and men and boys who shoot a little bird 

 wherever they have a chance. They are seen where a 

 zealous and patriotic rural constable, or any lounger who 



