278 SOME NOXIOUS INSECTS. 



sheep, either artificially by man, or in the ordinary course 

 of nature, just as birds moult their plumage. NOAV hair 

 is all but imperishable, as may be seen in the Egyptian 

 wig in the British Museum. Three thousand years have 

 passed since it was shorn, and yet it is as bright and 

 glossy as when it left the hands of the maker. If the 

 wool had been suffered to remain untouched, it would 

 have remained until the present day and choked up the 

 face of the habitable earth. But whether used by man 

 or not, it has still been used, and has returned to the 

 earth whence it came. 



Even in our own country it is interesting to trace the 

 return of the wool to its parent earth. 



The greater part is used by man as clothing. If he 

 cease to use it, the clothes moths, museum beetles, and 

 their kin attack it, and before long have devoured it, so 

 that it again returns to earth. 



Some of it is torn off by brambles and left hanging to 

 the prickles; but it is not wasted. The little birds carry 

 it off and use it for their nests as long as it is capable of 

 acting as a warm, soft bed for the eggs and young. 

 Afterwards, when the birds have left it, the moths and 

 beetles come to it and devour it, just as they devour 

 woollen clothes. If they did not do so the branches of 

 every tree would be so clogged with nests that the leaves 

 could not grow and the tree would perish. 



In this country we are but little plagued with the 

 wood-eating insects. Their numbers are few and their 

 size insignificant. "Within doors we suffer but little from 



