1 70 SALICACE.E. 



us, at an early period of the year, when its pure white 

 silky catkins first burst the cerements that enshroud 

 them, that the severity of winter is fast passing away 

 and a milder season approaching'. It is also a little 

 later, when those catkins we lately admired for their 

 silvery lustre are now glowing with a golden inflorescence, 

 that we first hear and listen, with pleasurable feelings, 

 beneath its richly-clothed head, to the busy hum of the 

 honey-bee, and to that of its larger and more sonorous 

 relative, the humble-bee, whose resuscitation from a long 

 torpidity we have always been accustomed to hail as a 

 certain indication of the commencement of spring and of 

 a mild and genial temperature. 



The wood of the Saugh is of a pinkish white colour, 

 with a fine smooth grain ; and, possessing considerable 

 lateral as well as longitudinal adhesion, is tough and 

 elastic. These properties render it applicable and well 

 adapted to various purposes where small-sized wood only 

 is required ; thus, it makes good handles for hatchets 

 and other tools, rake-teeth, &c. It also makes light and 

 durable hurdles, which long resist the alternation of moist- 

 ure and dryness. It is subject, however, to have the 

 lower part of the stem much injured by the galleries or 

 perforations of the larva of the TrocMlium craironiforme, 

 (Lunar Hornet Sphinx,) a beautiful lepidopterous insect 

 belonging to the family TrochiUda : Few trees of this 

 species, — to which it seems confined, — escape the ravages 

 of this insect, and out of a great number of trees cut 

 down at various times we scarcely recollect a single in- 

 stance where the plant had attained a diameter of two 

 or three inches, that had not been perforated by the 

 TrocMlium. In its perfect state it is rarely met with 

 at large, and most of the specimens we possess have been 



