SEPTEMBER 35 



bales bringing goods from hot countries, which in dry 

 summers are hatched out in these northern climates. 

 One summer my Sedums were covered with a lovely 

 green beetle. I have never seen him again, but I am 

 too ignorant to know if he were a stranger or only an 

 insect common in our gardens and appearing in some 

 summers and not in others a usual occurrence with all 

 insects. Sometimes there are a quantity of one kind, 

 they having triumphed over their natural enemies and 

 flourished abundantly. Then for a year or two they 

 disappear entirely. This is an especial characteristic 

 of butterflies. I thought there might be some way of 

 encouraging butterflies in my garden, where they seem 

 to have become rarer, and I asked a friend, who has 

 studied natural history all his life, whether he could help 

 me to do this. His answer was : ' The way to have 

 butterflies is to encourage the food -plants of the cater- 

 pillar.' He added: 'Fortunately, our three handsomest 

 English butterflies feed on the nettle the Peacock, the 

 Small Tortoiseshell, and the Red Admiral. The Purple 

 Emperor is too rare for consideration.' I, being a 

 gardener before all things, did not think it was at all 

 fortunate that their natural food was nettles. I had 

 spent my whole life in eradicating nettles, so it is 

 perhaps not astonishing if butterflies have become less 

 in my garden. 



We have had a great many figs this year, and they 

 have ripened well. No doubt they do better since we 

 have removed suckers and the small autumn figs that 

 never ripen here. It is curious how few people in Eng- 

 land realize that, apparently, the fig never flowers, and 

 that what we call the fruit is the flower. Male and 

 female mixed are inside the fig, which when it enlarges 

 forms the receptacle and encloses numerous one -seeded 

 carpels imbedded in its pulp. This may be seen quite 



