their efforts to remove the plague, it pleased God to interfere by his providence, and a succession of cold rains for three days in May effectually stopped the progress of the destroyers, by utterly annihilating them. Réaumur's remarks well deserve extracting; he says:--"I had been hoping much from the effect of these showers, and attentively watched what would be the result. I saw day by day that among the little bands of larvæ which were aggregated together in order to cover the twigs of the trees with silk, or to despoil them of their leaves, there were many whose bodies became flabby, elongated, and devoid of roundness. These quickly perished. Every day the mortality became more serious among them. In a short time the larvæ, which had previously swarmed upon the trees, became so few, that before ten or twelve days had passed by I could not find a single one, although I looked carefully for them." It is remarkable enough, and sets forth strikingly the short-sightedness and ingratitude of man, that these very showers, which produced what no combined efforts of human power could or did effect, were bitterly complained of as inappropriate to the season, at the time when they were falling! These larvæ were hatched from eggs deposited by a common species of moth. Although England has been often mercifully spared while continental countries have largely suffered by such visitations as we have last described, we have not always come off unscathed. The larvæ of a moth nearly allied to, if not the same as the last-mentioned, produced an alarm in 1782 in our country, perhaps even more extensive than the previous one in France. All sorts of strange and silly rumours were spread abroad; some believing that the larvæ were the harbingers of coming disease and death. Poor people were hired to cut off the webs of these larvæ at the rate of one shilling a bushel, and they were then burned under the inspection of the churchwardens and overseers. In the parish of Clapham, we are told by an author who wrote upon the history of this insect, _eighty bushels_ were collected in one day! Prayers were offered up in some churches to deliver the country from the apprehended approaching calamity.