168 LEAF-MINING CATERPILLARS. 



attracted by a light, as not only to hover around it, 



but even to fly into the flame. The practice is, 



however, so general, though so inexpUcable, that 



when Portia says, 



" Thus hath the candle singled the moth, " 



(Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. IX.) 



she uses an illustration with which every one is 

 familiar, and mentions an action which the spectator 

 cannot behold without his sympathy being disagree- 

 ably, if not painfully excited. 



While sauntering " under the greenwood tree," 

 you can scarcely have failed to observe, that the 

 foliage presents, occasionally, a perforated or torn 

 appearance ; but, perhaps, you were not aware that the 

 little beings by whom this was occasioned, were, in 

 most instances, the caterpillars of moths. Their opera- 

 tions are not always carried on in so open a manner : 

 some species conceal themselves within the leaf, and 

 there feed upon its pulp, without breaking through 

 the membranous tissue of the surface. Nay, even 

 the thickness of a leaf, trifling though it be, is more 

 than they require ; the one-half of that extent giving 

 scope enough for their operations. Of this, you can 

 easily convince yourself, by examining the leaves of 

 some of your rose trees, or of the common bramble of 

 our hedges, or any of those indigenous plants of lowlier 

 growth, which adorn the sloping bank, or perfume 



