270 GOLD-TAIL DESTROYEES. 



if not anticipated, by the providential auxiliary of a cold rainy 

 May. Some fifty years later, a similar panic, from a similar 

 cause, set England in a ferment of alarm. The extensive ravages 

 of the Brown-tails obtained for them on this occasion the dis- 

 tinction of an historic volume.* The poor in the vicinity of 

 London were employed to cut off their webs (or hammocks) at 

 a shilling a bushel, fourscore of which were said to have been 

 collected at Clapham in one day ; and though these devourers 

 are no consumers either of grass or grain, it was ignorantly 

 supposed that, as with the " northern armies" of the East^ 

 famine and pestilence were likely to follow in their train, to 

 avert which calamities public prayers were offered up. 



Attached to the same division of the caterpillar army, there 

 are certain corps of tiny light infantry, whose white encamp- 

 .ments are in some seasons conspicuous upon every hedge 

 in May and June. Merciless leaf-strippers as they are, they 

 would yet seem to have a touch of compassion in their cruelty, 

 inasmuch as they often clothe, in a measure, with their silken 

 tissues, the unfortunate branches which they have reduced to 

 a state of nudity. The regiments of Gold-tail and Brown-tail, 

 after a certain season, are all, as we have seen, accustomed to 

 disband ; but those which we are now reviewing never break 

 company at all, while wearing their caterpillar uniforms (grey 

 and black), or even when caparisoned in chrysalidan armour 

 of black and gold. 



* By Curtis. 



