Other Leaf-Rollers 



The result of my stratagems deserves 

 mention. The sleepers awake, eat the in- 

 side of the softened loaf and make up so 

 well for lost time that in a few weeks they 

 are as large as those which have not suffered 

 any interruption in my jars half full of moist 

 earth. 



This knack of suspending life for months 

 at a time, when the provisions have lost the 

 requisite tenderness, is not repeated in the 

 other leaf-rollers. At the end of August, 

 three months after the hatching, there is 

 nothing left alive in the cigars of the vine 

 which have been allowed to dry. Death is 

 even swifter in the withered cigars of the 

 poplar. As for the cylinders of the alder, 

 in the absence of a sufficient number of 

 leaves, I was not able to estimate their inhab- 

 itants' powers of endurance. 



Of the four leaf-rollers, the one most 

 threatened by drought is that of the oak. 

 Her barrel falls and lies on a soil which is 

 extremely arid except at times of rain; more- 

 over, because of its small dimensions, it dries 

 right through at the first touch of the sun. 



The ground is equally dry in the vine- 

 yard; but there is shade under the branches 

 193 



