Trees Leafing Twice in the Year. 213 



it an aspect very different from that so repulsive in some 

 other members of the family. 



I have seen it somewhere stated that the Wood Mouse, 

 as also the harvest species, occasionally eats insects. I 

 doubt there being any truth in the statement. Its denti- 

 tion is essentially of the rodent character, and my 

 " Mexican " potatoes, gnawed here and there around the 

 neighbourhood of the nest, give proof that the pair taken 

 have been for some time past indulging in a diet purely 

 vegetable. In their stomachs I could detect nothing 

 recognisable save by chemical analysis. 



TREES LEAFING TWICE IN THE YEAR. 



Unobservant people may think it strange when told 

 that many, indeed, most species, of our deciduous trees 

 in certain years produce what might be called two crops 

 of leaves. Not of themselves, naturally, but forced to it ; 

 though the forcing is also due to nature, through the 

 larvae of insects feeding upon, and often totally destroy- 

 ing, the first output of foliage. The spring of 1881 in 

 many places gave striking illustration of this, whole 

 patches of woodland, especially oaks, throughout the 

 month of May showing leafless as in midwinter. But 

 the " midsummer sap " for it is this which renews the 

 foliage brought them about ; and in after summer they 

 were again green, with a leafage as full and luxuriant as 

 those which the caterpillars had left unscathed. 



