Fastidious Caterpillars
An oddity of natural history that is puzzling the very elect must have been noticed by most of those who have been in the country if only for a few superficial hours. Some of the oak- trees are apparently leafless. They have been defoliated with singular thoroughness, not by frost or drought, but by the little green caterpillar that is their particular enemy. The puzzle is why one oak is taken and the c tht: left. Trees growing side by side with no particular differe ice in themselves, are in sharpest contrast. One is immense, covered with full, fresh foliage. The other has borne the full blast of the plague; though there are, of course, two different sorts of oak—the sessile and pedunculate—the contrast is not due to species. The ravaging of the oaks is a not uncommon occurrence. The little fawn-coloured moth that is the fount and origin of the evil is one of the commonest and hardiest ; and in favourable breeding seasons its progeny flourish out of all reason. Happily the oaks have a wonderful reserve of energy. The devoured leaves are replaced and on occasion you may see oaks rejoicing in bright, spring-hle foliage at an autumnal date, when their enemy has undergone his metamorphosis.
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