MISCHIEF CATERPILLARS CAN DO. 59 
4T 
thought it must he blight; but some naturalists 
took the trouble to visit the wood, and they said 
it was not blight, but caterpillars.* Caterpillars 
are little creatures to do such a large amount 
of mischief; but thousands upon thousands of 
them had been feeding, day and night, on the 
trees in this wood, and the consequence was 
they had eaten up all the leaves, and left nothing 
but bare branches. 
I will tell you another such instance. One 
summer, some years ago, an army of caterpillarsf 
suddenly made their appearance in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of London; and began to march through 
the country, devouring everything before them. 
The trees swarmed with them, the gardens were 
stripped, and scarcely a green herb was to be 
seen upon their track. People fancied the very 
air smelt of caterpillars; they raised an alarm 
that the plague was sure to follow; and in order 
to avert such a calamity, prayers were put rq3 in 
the different churches. The poor market gar¬ 
deners suffered the most, and subscriptions were 
raised to assist them; and persons were paid to 
collect the caterpillars’ webs, and burn them. 
The churchwardens, in many of the parishes, gave 
a shilling for every bushel of web that was 
* Of the moth Tortrix viridiana. 
f- Of the brown-tail moth, Porthesia auriflua. 
