OBSERVATIONS ON BLIGHT. 427 



spinning their web at once ; in this they live till their second 

 change of skin; after which they wander from each other, 

 straggling all over the tree ; — they now no longer spin, but 

 each plies away at a separate leaf as hard as he can. The 

 caterpillar, when full fed, is very beautiful, being striped 

 lengthwise down the back with blue, red, black, and white. 

 It spins a loose, oblong cocoon, about three-quarters of an inch 

 long, which is covered inside and out with a golden dust, just 

 like the pollen of flowers. These cocoons may be found every 

 July, stuck against palings, walls, trunks of trees, on leaves, 

 &c., in the most conspicuous situations ; and the greater part 

 of the chrysalises which they contain becomes the prey of the 

 sparrow and the tom-tit. 



In all these cases it is very difficult to suggest any remedy ; 

 but Nature has means of her own ; the effects of which we 

 may witness every day, though we must ever remain in igno- 

 rance of the acting causes ; thus, after a year in which either 

 of these insects may have abounded in hosts like locusts, so as 

 almost to strip from Earth's face her beauteous veil of green, 

 the following year not one of the kind has been seen, and the 

 breed is barely continued by some pair of straggling indivi- 

 duals, to swarm again at the appointed time : but, though we 

 cannot deal effectually and certainly with these insect-wasters, 

 yet a good deal may be done by a little care, especially in 

 gardens ; — smoke, made by burning weeds at the time a moth 

 is laying eggs, drives it away, and thus affords a local cure ; 

 the webs also, by a careful gardener, may be picked off and 

 burnt when the caterpillars are young and clustered together; 

 and thus, in gardens, the vegetation may be completely saved. 



The jumping weevil,'' which I alluded to in my last as in- 

 festing the beech-trees, is a very impotent enemy; it attacks 

 the leaves just as they are preparing to open, and, whilst still 

 unfolded, di"ills little holes through them, so that when fully 

 open they look as though they had been shot at. The elm 

 feeds another beetle of the same tribe, but of a brown colour, 

 spotted with black ; it is often called the elm-flea, from its 

 being a most excellent leaper. These leaf-eating beetles are 

 scarcely worth notice, as an injury ; but there are other beetles, 

 scarcely bigger than these, whose visit to a tree is death, — 



'^ Oixlicstcs Fagi, — Ed. 



