PLATE BLV. 43 



table, and ftarve the cattle in the fields. From thefe alarming mif- 

 reprefentations, almoft every cue ignorant of their hiftory has been 

 under difmal appreheniions concerning then) ; and even prayers have 

 been offered up in fome churches to deliver us from the apprehended 

 approaching calamity."—" Some idea may be formed (fays the 

 fame author in a note on the above paffage) of their numbers from, 

 the following circumflances. In many pariflies about London fib- 

 fcriptions have been opened, and the poor employed to cut off and 

 collect the webs at one milling per bufliel, which had been burned 

 under the infpection of the churchwardens, overfeers, or beadles 

 of the parilh ; at the firft onfet of this bufinefs, fourfcorce bufhels, 

 as 1 was moft credibly informed, were collected in one day in the 

 parilh of Clapham." 



One object in writing this tract was to fhew, that the infect wa3 

 not new in this country, the fpecies being found every year, and in 

 fome abundance, though not in plenty fufficicnt to excite the public 

 attention. It was then known, as the author obferves, by thofe who 

 collected infects as the caterpillar of the Brown-tail Moth. Nor is it 

 peculiar to this country, being found in many parts of Europe. 

 Albin, who publifhed in 1720, fays, the caterpillars lay themfelves 

 up in webs all the winter, and as foon as the buds open they come 

 forth and devour them in fuch a manner that whole trees, and fome- 

 times hedges, for a great way together, are abfolutely bare. Geoffroy 

 defcribes it as the moft common of all infects about Paris, where 

 it is found on moft of the trees, which it often ftrips entirely of 

 their foliage in the fpring. Our great naturalift Ray defcribes it 

 likewife. 



With refpect to the caterpillars of the Brown-tail Moth in the 

 year 1782, and alfo in the year preceding, Mr. Curtis obferves 

 their numbers were uncommonly great and unufually extenfive, though 

 he does not pretend to ftate the precife track in which they are 

 found, having had no opportunity of obferving it, remarking only 

 in this particular, that when infects are multiplied in this extraor- 



g 2 dinary 



