522 
pliny's natural htstort. 
[Book XYIL 
sitive to eitlier cold or heat, as every injurious influence from 
without is apt to concentrate in the wounds thus made. The 
apple, however, is the most delicate of them all, and more 
particularly the one that bears the sweetest fruit. In some 
tre.es weakness induced by disease is productive of barrenness, 
and does not kill the tree ; as in the pine^^ for instance, or the 
palm, when the top of the tree has been removed ; for in such 
case the tree becomes barren, but does not die. Sometimes, too, 
the fruit itself is sickly, independently of the tree ; for example, 
when there is a deficiency of rain, or of warmth, or of wind, 
at the periods at which they usually prevail, or when, on the 
other hand, they have prevailed in excess ; for in such cases the 
fruit will either drop off or else deteriorate. But the worst 
thing of all that can befall the vine or the olive, is to be pelted 
with heavy showers just when the tree is shedding its blossom, 
for then the fruit is sure to fall off ^ as well. 
Eain, too, is productive of the caterpillar, a noxious insect 
that eats away the leaves, and, some of them, the blossoms as 
well ; and this in the olive even, as we find the case at Miletus ; 
giving to the half-eaten tree a most loathsome appearance. This 
pest is produced by the prevalence of a damp, languid heat ; 
and if the sun should happen to shine after this with a more 
intense heat and burn them up, this pest only gives place to 
another'^ just as bad, the aspect only of the evil being changed. 
There is still one other affection that is peculiar to the olive 
and the vine, known as the cobweb,"^ the fruit being en- 
veloped in a web, as it were, and so stifled. There are certain 
winds, too, that are particularly blighting to the olive and the 
vine, as .also to other fruits as well : and then besides, the fruits 
themselves, independently of the tree, are very much worm- 
eaten in some years, the apple, pear, medlar, and pomegranate 
for instance. In the olive the presence of the worm may be 
9^ From Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. iv. c. 16. If the terminal bud 
of the palm is taken off, it will mostly die. 
^ Decidunt." The French use a similar word — couler. In this case the 
pollen, being washed off by the showers, has not the opportunity of fecun- 
dating the ovary of the flower. 
2 The insect Ichneumon or Pupivora, probably, which breeds in the 
larvae or else in the body of the caterpillar. The passage is from Theo- 
phrastus, B. iv. c. 16. 
3 Caused probably by a maggot or moth passing from one grape or olive 
to another, and spinning its web in vast quantities. See Theophrastus, 
B iv. c. 17. 
