DESTRUCTION OF THE CHENILLE PROCESSION AIRE. 161 



said that it might be easy to master it. The legislative arrange- 

 ments, which relate to the destruction of other larvae, might with 

 all propriety be extended to this ; and as there are four months 

 during which the work might be carried on, there appears to be no 

 reason why it might not be effected. But, it is well it should be 

 known that the greater proportion of the nests are situated on the 

 extremities of the upper branches of high trees, where it would be 

 almost always impossible to reach them, and always dangerous to 

 make an attempt to do so ; it must also be told, that in order to get 

 these nests it is necessary to cut down the branches which bear them, 

 and that if each branch have one of them, as may be seen, it would 

 be as well to fell the tree at oace, as to subject it to the deadly 

 operation of cutting off all its branches. 



" We are then obliged to let things take their course, and to leave 

 it to the birds, to the numerous parasites, and to meteorological 

 phenomena, to bring, and to maintain within proper limits, the multi- 

 plication of devastating insects. 



" There have been some years in which the vast forests of pines, in 

 the department of the Landes, have been invaded by the chenille 

 processionaire in numbers so prodigious that every branch and almost 

 every twig had its nest of these. Before winter a great portion of 

 the leaves had been devoured, and in spring the larvae coming out 

 of their winter's torpor, finished by browsing on the rest ; so that in 

 the month of March one might have said that a fire had swept over 

 the whole. 



" These ravages, which nothing could be done to prevent, were 

 continued two years, and caused many trees to perish. The people 

 were in a state of excitement ; and for my own part I did not hesitate 

 to declare that if this went on for two or three years longer, this 

 would probably be the case with the greatest number of our pines, 

 the enfeebled condition of which would be followed by organic 

 derangements sufficiently grave to attract the hostriches, the buprestes, 

 the innumerable liguivorous insects always ready to throw them- 

 selves upon diseased trees, and the attacks of which are a signal of 

 death. 



" So, as I have said, this condition of things continued two years. 

 In the third year, what was our astonishment to see that there was 

 scarcely a nest upon the trees ! The Chenilles had, so to speak, 

 disappeared. The titmice, the magpies, the cuckoos, and other birds 

 had doubtless destroyed great numbers, and doubtless some millions 

 had become the prey of carniverous and parasitic insects ; but, in 



X. 



