280 6'eason of ISlo. 



gregations have been frequent, in other places, as httle 

 likely to furnish their accustomed food. They seemed 

 to be of an uncommon species, for the most part ; and 

 they appeared, in tho^greatest plenty, at an unusual 

 time of the year ; — about midsummer ; — and continu- 

 ed till the first frosts in October. Our orchards were 

 not, in any great proportion, if at all, their breeding 

 places. I carefully examine mine, and destroy their 

 nests, or webs ; or place sods in the crotches of the 

 trees, to banish them, every spring. I found few nests, 

 this season, on the apple trees. Many forest trees in- 

 vite and support them. None more than the walnut, 

 and ivild cherry. The leaves of most plants, and the 

 foliage of vines and trees, (I think those of young peach 

 trees the least,) have been, more or less, injured, or 

 ruined, by their ravages. It has been unpleasant, in 

 the hottest day, to seek the shade of trees; from whence 

 the caterpillars were continually dropping. Their al- 

 most incredible numbers, exhibited, with the aid of 

 their coadjutors in mischief, an epitome of an Egypti- 

 an plague. The columns of those creeping spoilers, 

 climbing the stocks of trees, and moving, in hosts, on 

 fences ; and their detachments, on grass and other 

 plants ; would have furnished, to an uncandid and aci- 

 dulated touristy (a sort of literary caterpillar,) matter 

 for an episodical philippic on our country; — as if it 

 were generally infested with such nuisances ; — which, 

 in any degree like the present, I never before beheld. 

 Warned by the caution I have before recommended ; 

 perhaps, I had better have refrained from dilating on 

 a topic, so disgustingly singular. 



