78 My New Zealand Garden 



Syringing with Paris-green has to be resorted to 

 when the trees are in blossom, and is, I believe, a 

 sure preventive. The Leech, or a kind of slug- worm, 

 makes its appearance very regularly on the leaves 

 of the pear and plum. It skims off the surface 

 of the leaf, and every one would soon be brown if 

 its course were not impeded with a syringe and 

 solution of hellebore and water, which at once 

 puts an end to its pranks, making its food so 

 bitter that it prefers to go without. In about half 

 an hour there is a visible change for the worse in 

 its glistening brown skin. It has the most dis- 

 agreeable scent, and no bird, however bent on 

 blight destruction, would be likely to venture his 

 olfactory apparatus within sampling distance. I 

 suppose the mildness of our climate rather favours 

 obnoxious creatures, as they can pass through the 

 winter in safety. The snails make only a thin 

 covering for hibernating, and the worms do not 

 trouble to go down very deep to escape the frosts. 

 Dumb animals are far from being satisfactory 

 adjuncts to a garden, but my affectionate tom- 

 cats are very fond of watching me at work, 

 though if I am not watching them they are full of 

 evil tricks, and their gymnastic exercises invari- 

 ably take place on some forbidden spot. Nothing 

 seems to please them better than playing, which 

 play soon becomes a sparring match with a choice 

 plant, such as a heath, between them. They look 



