90 
GKEEN OAK-MOTH. 
A larger moth, with a yellow tail and snow-white body 
and wings, is also very destructive to white-thorn hedges ; 
but its proceedings have already been so accurately told, 
that I will not repeat them. This moth is appropriately 
called the ''Yellow-Tail."* A kind very similar in its 
ways to the little ermine moth inhabits the oaks, and some- 
times in such swarms as to consume every leaf, and incase 
all the twigs in a continuous web for hundreds of acres ; I 
have noticed this in Surrey and Sussex on three occasions, 
and once in part of Shropshire and Herefordshire. In the 
July of 1831 the oak-w^oods about Downton Castle, the 
residence of the late Mr. Knight, the celebrated horticul- 
turist, were as completely bare as on Christmas- day, and 
had a most unnatural appearance ; the season was rather 
late, and the moth was then in the chrysalis, as I ascer- 
tained by climbing up some of the trees, and shaking down 
whole showers of them. Early in the year the caterpillars 
may be seen, when the sun is warm, hanging by their lit- 
tle threads from all parts of almost every oak tree, swing- 
ing to and fro with the least breath of air, like a lot of 
pendulums, each varying in time according to the length 
of its thread, which acts as the rod, and each occasionally 
giving itself a twist, like a slack -rope dancer, in the over- 
flowing joy and happiness of its little heart. Each turns 
to a black chrysalis; and in ten days afterwards to a beau- 
tiful, yes, exceedingly beautiful, pea-green, bell-shaped 
little moth,t but too common to be valued for its beauty. 
When the moth is on the wing the oaks again clothe them- 
selves with all the fresh green of spring, and the woods 
once more throw^ off their wintry looks. 
* Arctia clivysorrlioea. — E. N. f Tortrix viridanus. — E. N. 
