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I apprehend, who have worked the woods and forests in the 

 spring of the year, who have not occasionally noticed trees 

 or sometimes small tracts of the woods completely devastated 

 by larvae ; thus we find that in 1864 a portion of Epping 

 Forest, nearly a mile in length, was subjected to the ravages 

 of the larvae of Cheimatobia brumata, L. ; the air beneath the 

 trees was full of the silken threads by which the larvae had 

 lowered themselves when shaken off the branches by the 

 breeze, and the plants and even the fallen leaves upon the 

 ground were devoured by them {E.M.M. i. 243). In the 

 same year in some of the woods near Cockermouth, in strips 

 of the woods some two or three hundred yards wide, the 

 leaves of every tree were consumed by the larvae of our 

 common autumn moths, thousands of them dying for want 

 of food, the species being chiefly Oporabia dilutata, Bork., 

 Hybernia defoliaria, Clerck., Cheimatobia brumata, L., and C. 

 boreata, Hb. {Entom. ii. 152). In 1872, in a wood near 

 Plymouth, large patches of oaks were similarily defoliated, 

 the marauders in this case being Tceniocampa stabilis, View., 

 Hybernia defoliaria^ Clerck., Oporabia dilutata, Bork., and 

 Cheimatobia brumata, L. {Entom. viii. 12). And the larvae of 

 Hybernia defoliaria, Clerck., are accredited with being the 

 chief offenders in similar depredations committed in the New 

 Forest in 1881 {Entom. xiv. 178). The oaks and hazels in 

 the woods near Sheffield were completely denuded of their 

 foliage in 1888, the offending larvae being chiefly Hybernia 

 marginaria, Bork., and H. aurantiaria, Esp., with a few 

 Phigalia pedaria, Fb., and Oporabia dilutata, Bork. {Entom. 

 xxi. 212). I shall never forget a sight of this sort that I 

 witnessed on one of my earlier visits to Chattenden Roughs ; 

 many of the oaks were literally stripped of their leaves, 

 larvae were hanging in hundreds, aye thousands, from their 

 bare branches, and hurrying about on the ground beneath 

 them ; and upon examination I found them to be referable 

 almost without exception to the species of the genus Hybernia, 

 Latr., and chiefly H. defoliaria, Clerck. On a more recent 

 occasion I found a row of wych-elms, near Loughton, to 

 be treated in a like manner by the larvae of Cheimatobia 

 brumata, L., and in West Wickham wood I have observed 

 oak trees similarly treated by larvae, chiefly Hybernia 

 defoliaria, Clerck., H. aurantiaria, Esp,, and Cheimatobia 

 brumata, L., together with a few Phigalia pedaria, Fb., and 

 an occasional Tczniocampa stabilis, Wie.vj.,dind T . pulverulenta, 

 Esp. In 1881 Orgyia antiqua, L., was unusually abundant in 

 London, the lime trees between Buckingham Palace and 



