LEAF-BUTTONS. 245 



body." 1 After having devoured the interior folds of this 

 ingeniously constructed cone, its little inhabitant, still pro- 

 tected by the exterior walls, weaves within it a silken cocoon, 

 and undergoes his final transformations. 



A June ramble in Highgate wood furnished us, last summer, 

 with two most elegant specimens of the leaf-rolling combined 

 with the leaf-cutting art. A number of young oak-leaves 

 having been each roughly cut across the centre from the edge 

 up to the mid-rib, the half comprising the tip was formed 

 into a hard compact roll, of exquisite neatness, closely resem- 

 bling a barrel-button. 2 In the centre of each was a bright 

 yellow egg, but how it had got there (seeing that there was 

 no visible opening for the ingress or egress of its layer) was 

 and remains a question as puzzling to us, as, according to 

 Pindaric record, was once to royal brains the advent of the 

 apple in the dumpling. 



Tn the same wood, on the same day, we noticed certain 

 leaves of the hazel, cut and rolled in a form much more grace- 

 ful if not more curious than the above. These leaves, as those 

 of the oak, were severed, only more smoothly, across their 

 centres, the main stalk alone being left undivided ; but the ter- 

 minating halves, employed by the little artificers of the oak to 

 form their barrel-buttons, were, in this instance, simply rolled 

 or twisted into a spiral form, so as to have the appearance, in 

 their suspension by the mid-rib, of an ear-drop, or a pendant 

 tassel, the serrated edge of the hazel-leaf adding to the 

 elegance of their appearance. 3 With one more specimen of the 

 skill of Leaf- rollers we must close our brief notice of their 

 ingenious labours. On a cabbage rose-bush, at Hornsey, we 

 observed, in June of last summer, a case of horn-like shape, 

 wide and open at top, and pointed at bottom, formed out of a 

 leaf of the same shrub, twisted spirally, and suspended by 

 silken strings to the main stalk of a group of young leaflets. 



1 Insect Architecture ; also Reaumur. 



2 Vignette. 3 Vignette. 



