LEAF-BUTTONS. 



its little inhabitant, still protected by the exterior walls, weaves 

 within it a silken cocoon,, and undergoes his final trans- 

 formations. 



A June ramble in Highgate wood furnished us, last summer, 

 with two most elegant specimens of the leaf-rolling combined 

 with the leaf-cutting art. A number of young oak-leaves 

 having been each roughly cut across the centre from the edge 

 up to the mid-rib, the half comprising the tip was formed into 

 a hard compact roll, of exquisite neatness, closely resembling 

 a barrel-button."* In the centre of each was a bright yellow 

 egg, but how it had got there (seeing that there was no visible 

 opening for the ingress or egress of its layer) was and remains 

 a question as puzzling to us, as, according to Pindaric record, 

 was once to royal brains the advent of the apple in the 

 dumpling. Neither do we know at present by what ingenious 

 insect these oak-leaf buttons were manufactured, or eggs depo- 

 sited within them, not one of the latter having come to light, 

 in a living form, out of numerous rolls which we have had in 

 our keeping for above a year ; this is owing perhaps to lack of 

 moisture ; for it has since occured to us that the fall of the 

 leaves must supply their button-like appendages with a bed of 

 damp earth or moss, wanting in the box to which we con- 

 signed our gathered specimens. 



In the same wood, on the same day, wt noticed certain 



/ * 



leaves of the hazel, cut and rolled in a form much more graceful 

 if not more curious than the above. These leaves, as 



* Vignette. 



