canker-worms

These two canker-worms are the root causes of most of the other societal problems.

What will you like to Change? 2009

The noise of the greedy canker-worms, mincing the poor young green leaves over my head, seemed a soothing sound; and even the sharp headache I had brought with me from the school-room, only a sort of _sauce piquante_ to my delicious rest.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 Various

The canker-worms and the destructive tent-caterpillars also cause the death of many fruit trees.

Checking the Waste A Study in Conservation Mary Huston Gregory

These cursed priests eat up our substance like canker-worms, and grow sleek on the money that was left to keep the music going.

The Nebuly Coat John Meade Falkner 1895

They have invaded some of our recent poetry as the canker-worms gather on our elms in June.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Holmes, Oliver W 1891

Ceder Waxwing had eaten nothing but canker-worms and a few dung beetles, the latter in such small numbers as to scarcely count.

A Book of Natural History Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. Various 1891

He is a great devourer of canker-worms, and, when these pests appear, he comes out of his forest seclusion and makes excursions through the orchards stealthily and quietly, regaling himself upon those pulpy, fuzzy titbits.

Birds and Poets : with Other Papers John Burroughs 1879

All April long the door-yard trees crouch and shudder in the sour east, all June they rain canker-worms upon the roof, and then in autumn choke the eaves with a fall of tattered and hectic foliage.

Suburban Sketches William Dean Howells 1878

They seem a feature of the bygone village life of Charlesbridge, and accord pleasantly with the town-pump and the public horse-trough, and the noble elm that by night droops its boughs so pensively, and probably dreams of its happy younger days when there were no canker-worms in the world.

Suburban Sketches William Dean Howells 1878

It will be remembered that these trees have greatly suffered, in past times, from the ravages of canker-worms.

Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872