DIRECT INJURIES FROM MOTHS. 53 



veiling from one field to another. In the kitchen- 

 gardens their work of devastation was complete, for 

 they loft nothing of the whole tribe of culinary vege- 

 tables but the stalks and veins of the leaves. The 

 ignorant populace, conceiving that these pests were 

 poisonous, and even affirming that fatal effects had 

 followed the eating of them, felt such a consterna- 

 tion, that even in Paris, for many weeks, not an 

 individual would use pot-herbs in their soups. It 

 Avas fortunate, however, for France, that these de- 

 spoilcrs did not extend their ravages to the corn 

 fields, otherwise a famine would have been the con- 

 sequence. 



It has been satisfactorily proved by M. Reaumur, 

 that so prolific are these insects, that a single pair of 

 them might produce, in the course of one season, 

 eighty thousand individuals. How soon, then, might 

 they overspread the world, and devour the entire 

 fi'uits of the earth, did not the benign Creator of all 

 things see fit to check their ))rogi'ess by a wise pro- 

 vision ! The Ichneumon Fly, by depositing its eggs 

 within the body of tiic caterpillar, become larvae, and 

 prey upon its vitals ; and by this means the number, 

 which would otherwise be overwhelming, is kept 

 within due bounds. 



Caterpillars are great enemies to all kinds of fruit ; 

 and the foliage suffers much from the depredations 

 of the larva of the Black and White Caterpillar of the 

 riialama grossidariata. Mr Forsyth, in his work on 



