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