Caterpillars. 353 



chambers have but slight partitions; but before the frosts 

 set in the whole is made thick and warm. 



None of the preceding details, however, appear so striking 

 as what is recorded of the brown-tail moth (Porihesia auri- 

 flua) by Mr. W. Curtis,* whose multitudinous colonies 

 spread great alarm over the country in the summer of 1782. 

 This alarm was much increased by the exaggeration and 

 ignorant details which found their way into the newspapers. 

 The actual numbers of these caterpillars must have been 



Winter nest of the Social Caterpillars of the Brown-tall Moth (Po 

 figured from specimen. 



immense, since Curtis says, " in many of the parishes near. 

 London subscriptions have been opened, and the poor people 

 employed to cut off the webs at one shilling per bushel, 

 which have been burnt under the inspection of the church- 

 wardens, overseers, or beadle of the parish : at the first 

 onset of this business fourscore bushels, as I was most 

 credibly informed, were collected in one day in the parish of 

 Clapham." 



It is not, therefore, very much to be wondered at, that the 



* Curtis, Hist, of Brown-tail Moth, 4to. London, 1782. 



9. A 



