THE GARDEN-ROOM 31 



emotional nature will seldom be found together with 

 the highest records in horticulture. I confess to 

 hesitation about that slug. It seemed hard to have 

 come so far merely to die. If he had been a showy 

 and dashing slug, it is very probable I should have 

 spared him and let him loose, hoping that he was one 

 of the meat-eating, harmless, useful variety ; but there 

 was nothing to elevate him above other slugs except 

 the accident of American birth. For some reason or 

 other he put me in mind of the West Indian turtles 

 those poor monsters that are captured by the light of 

 the moon when they come ashore with their wives, in 

 Tobago and elsewhere. After entering captivity they 

 are branded on the yellow shells of their stomachs ; 

 they are hoisted aboard steamers by their flippers and 

 despatched homeward to death. Death too often 

 overtakes them long before they reach England. I 

 once came back from the West Indies in a great 

 storm, and the sole bright spot of each desolate and 

 anxious day was turtle-soup for dinner. If, however, 

 the unhappy reptiles get to London alive, instantly 

 they have their poor throats cut and their precious 

 juices extracted to support aldermen by night and 

 stock-jobbers by day. 



My slug died, and I consoled myself with the reflec- 

 tion that he had lived a full life, enjoyed some great 

 experiences for a slug, and crossed the Atlantic in a 

 crack mail steamer without paying a cent for his 

 passage. 



Vitis purpurea has beautiful claret-coloured foliage ; 

 while the leaves of vitis Coignetiae, or Madame Coig- 



