Spotted and spider-like, the long-legged females of the mottled umber sprawl on the trunks and branches of the very trees which, as caterpillars, they attacked so fiercely last spring. Do we not remember how they swung on silken lifelines from branches denuded of leaves, and how those that had fallen swarmed up the boles to reach the few tattered remnants of the spring foliage. They do not look like moths, these wingless females, but the males, flattened against the trunk or sheltering in crannies in the bark, are very beautiful. There are hardly two alike; some are almost orange, others, as their name suggests, umber as the dead bracken below, others again pale brown or grey. Some have their wings crossed by faint waving lines, some by a smart, dark band, for this destructive species is a variable one.
If the numbers present are anything to go by we shall have another plague next year, but nature seldom allows over-abundance for more than one or two seasons. Already scattered wings lie at the foot of the trees or hang, fluttering in the breeze, in the webs of spiders; birds and other insect-devourers have been at work, and weather or epidemic may readjust the balance. Fortunately, our well-established trees can stand two or three seasons’ defoliation; in their long lifetime they have suffered many times.
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