MULTUM E PARVO. 



with what effect, it was let loose upon the guilty 

 nations. To outward appearance it is a mere 

 grasshopper, in nowise more formidable than one 

 of those crinking merry-voiced denizens of our 

 summer-fields that children chase and capture; 

 yet with what terror is it beheld by the inhabi- 

 tants of the East 1 The speech which Mohammed 

 attributed to a locust graphically represents the 

 popular estimate of its powers: — "We are the 

 army of the great God ; w r e produce ninety-nine 

 eggs ; if the hundred were complete we should con- 

 sume the whole earth and all that is in it." 



It is only a short time since the public papers 

 were occupied with articles expressing the most 

 gloomy fears for the noble oak and pine forests of 

 Germany. It was stated that millions of fine trees 

 had already fallen under the insidious attacks of a 

 beetle, a species of extreme minuteness, which lays 

 its eggs in the bark, whence the larvae penetrate 

 between the bark and the wood, and destroy the 

 vital connexion between these parts, interrupting 

 the course of the descending sap, and inducing 

 rapid decay and speedy death. 



In the north of France, the public promenades 

 are almost everywhere shaded by avenues of noble 

 elms. In very many cases these trees are fast dis- 

 appearing before the assaults of a similar foe. 

 And the grand old elms of our own metropolitan 

 parks and gardens are becoming so thinned, that 

 great alarm has been felt, and the resources of 

 science employed for the checking of the mischief. 

 Fifty thousand trees, chiefly oaks, have also been 

 destroyed in the Bois de Yincennes, near Paris. In 

 all these cases the minute but mighty agent has 

 been some species or other of the genus Scotytus. 



Fortunately in this clime we know only by re- 

 port the consumptive energy of the termites, or 

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