JULY 113 



the creature refills himself, the skin being 

 tough, and next day he is at work again as 

 hungry as ever. This suspected occurrence, 

 however, I refrain from too closely verify- 

 ing. The rose pest of former years that 

 little bright green caterpillar who after 

 awhile sewed himself up in a leaf, became 

 a tiny black chrysalis, and then emerged a 

 smart little yellow moth, was not nearly 

 so bad as the voracious Skinner. It is long 

 since that little moth used to be too 

 common in the garden. To see it again 

 would at once bring back the past, with 

 a feeling of dark summer evenings in 

 long-lost years, and a pervading sense of 

 the smell of rain upon the summer leaves. 

 There are some insects which would 

 seem to be less abundant now than formerly. 

 It gave me pleasure to meet a cockchafer 

 one morning ! The burnished rose-beetle 

 who used to sit like a green jewel in the 

 heart of a rose, or burr over the roses in 

 the sunshine, I never see here now. Even 

 the little leaf cutter bee has deserted us. 

 His neatly rounded cuttings, sawn out of 

 the rose leaves, disfigured them infinitely 



H 



