THE WHITE ROCKERY 61 



lavender colour, a wonderful bloomer, and hardier 

 than the type. You cannot have too much of this. 

 Phlox stellaria also showers over the ledges here, and 

 phlox canadensis is a good thing too in its straggly 

 way ; but, upon the whole, my slugs like it better 

 than I do. Out of respect for their tastes, my garden 

 resembles the Zoological Society's to some extent, 

 for it is full of cages. They are, however, not placed 

 here to prevent the plants from getting out, but to 

 keep the slugs from getting in. These zinc collars are 

 very ugly, but absolutely necessary on my rock-border. 

 I have slain till I am sick of slaughter. I have used 

 all the slug-killing prescriptions, and have found them 

 all equally efficacious. I have such slug preserves that 

 I can go out and bag a brace or a hundred brace 

 at any moment. Only yesterday I surprised a snail 

 that had chosen the comparative seclusion of daphne 

 cneorum to lay a whole cargo of eggs. I counted the 

 pearly things, and there were exactly seventy-four. 

 These hermaphroditic horrors can all lay eggs. So 

 can the slugs, I understand. Snails are simpler to 

 catch, on the same principle that a man who has 

 a house and is his own tenant must be easier to 

 secure than one who merely flits about among hotels; 

 but frankly, I am tired of catching them. I have 

 destroyed legions ; I have taken them with subtle 

 snares and springes ; in Touchstone's words, I have 

 "made away, translated their life into death, their 

 liberty into bondage ; I have dealt with them by 

 poison, bastinado, and steel ; I have bandied with 

 them in faction, o'er-run them with policy ; killed 



