OAK: CHESTNUT: OSTRYA. 61 



few seconds, if all is quiet, the front wings drop back 

 within the others, and the insect is practically 

 invisible. When I collected, as a boy, in theVesubia 

 valley, I used to call Hermione the Chestnut tree 

 butterfly, for I did not know its name. It was 

 naturally not to be found in Coleman's " British Butter- 

 flies," and volumes such as Lang and Hofmann did 

 not then exist. Circe (Fig. 113) has almost as good a 

 claim to be called after the Chestnut tree. 



The Germans call Hermione the " door-keeper of 

 the woods," for it guards the entrance of every glade : 

 Waldportier, setzt sich gern an Baumstamme. If 

 you stand still among the Chestnut trees, the " Wood- 

 porter" will sometimes settle on your head or 

 shoulders. 



In the mountain villages north of Nice the poorer 

 folk subsisted until quite lately on the fruits of the 

 Castanea vesca. Elsewhere the tree is equally 

 important. They say that if a Corsican obtains 

 possession of two or three Chestnut trees and a goat, 

 he will never do another stroke of work. What, 

 plough and sow and reap and toil, when you can lie 

 under a Chestnut tree, and pick *up the fruits as they 

 fall ! 



In some parts of Switzerland, at Weggis for 

 instance, the Chestnuts are being cut down because 

 the price of the fruit has sunk so low that it is not 

 thought worth gathering. Thus both the Chestnut and 

 the Olive are theatened with extermination by the 

 great law of " supply and demand," the one and only 

 law that is sacred in this twentieth century. 



To the same family, Cupuliferse, with the Oak 

 and Chestnut belong the Beech, Hornbeam (Carpinus\ 



