Birds that Destroy Fine Seeds — Insect Ravages. 161 



by placing strychnine or arsenic in a carrot, apple, or a potato near 

 where their burrows come to the surface — but caution should be 

 taken in the use of these dangerous poisons. 



649. In parks and forests where game is protected, there is some- 

 times much sacrificed from their propensity to gnaw and rub. Deer 

 are as destructive to the herbage of young trees as sheep or goats. 

 In Europe, it is customary to feed hay and turnips to herbivorous 

 game in winter. 



650. In sowing pine seeds, it becomes necessary to guard against 

 some of the gramnivorous birds, who seem to be attracted, as if by 

 instinct, to the feast. The white-throated and white-crowned spar- 

 rows, appear to be particularly fond of these seeds, and after the 

 young shoots have come up, they become dainty food for the com- 

 mon yellow-bird. The best remedy against these birds, is a thin 

 covering of marsh-grass or of fine brush, care being taken that it 

 does not smother the young plants. A better one would be an old 

 seine, suspended upon poles a few inches above the seed-beds in the 

 nursery. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



INSECT RAVAGES IN WOODIANDS. 



651. Our limits do not permit more than a general notice of the 

 damages done to trees from insects. They begin with the seed — are 

 found in the young shoot, and in the bark or wood of the roots, 

 trunk and branches, at every stage of growth — in the leaves, the 

 blossoms, and the ripening fruit. They sometimes appear in small 

 numbers, and every year alike, and at others they increase in im- 

 mense number, and either progressively or simultaneously destroy 

 every thing before them. 



652. Among those most systematic in their movements is the 

 processionary caterpillar, shown in the annexed engravings, copied 

 from De la Blanchire.^ The moth appears in August or Septem- 

 ber, and for some days remains motionless under the leaves and 

 branches, flying only in the twilight. The female lays some 

 two hundred eggs upon the hark, and from these the worms soon 

 hatch out. They live together in a common net, often changing 

 their abode till the third moult, when they set out in the evening 



^Les Eavageurs dea Foreis, ei des Arbres d' AUgnemeni, i. 170. 



