194 FRESH FIELDS 



important item. The rabbits are slaughtered in un- 

 told numbers throughout the island. They shoot 

 them, and hunt them with ferrets, and catch them 

 in nets and gins and snares, and they are the prin- 

 cipal game of the poacher, and yet the land is alive 

 with them. Thirty million skins are used up an- 

 nually in Great Britain, besides several million hare 

 skins. The fur is used for stuffing beds, and is 

 also made into yarn and cloth. 



But the Colorado beetle is our own, and it shows 

 many of the European virtues. It is sufficiently 

 prolific and persistent to satisfy any standard; but 

 we cannot claim all the qualities for it till it has 

 crossed the Atlantic and established itself on the 

 other side. 



There are other forms of life in which we surpass 

 the mother country. I did not hear the voice of 

 frog or toad while I was in England. Their marshes 

 were silent; their summer nights were voiceless. 

 I longed for the multitudinous chorus of my own 

 bog; for the tiny silver bells of our hylas, the long- 

 drawn and soothing tr-r-r-r-r of our twilight toads, 

 and the rattling drums, kettle and bass, of our pond 

 frogs. Their insect world, too, is far behind ours; 

 no fiddling grasshoppers, no purring tree-crickets, 

 no scraping katydids, no whirring cicadas ; no sounds 

 from any of these sources by meadow or grove, by 

 night or day, that I could ever hear. We have a 

 large orchestra of insect musicians, ranging from 

 that tiny performer that picks the strings of his 

 instrument so daintily in the summer twilight, to 



