176 INSECTS AND HAKD WINTERS 



metre that causes him to be mentioned formally as 

 William Smail. The moral, perhaps, is a trifle startling in 

 its sweeping assumption of culpability in the audience ; 

 but then doubtless the poet connaissait son monde. 



LXVIII 



The common belief that hard winters are beneficial 

 to farmers and gardeners because of the destruction 



. to insect life, has received a severe shock in 

 insects ana 



Hard 1895. The foregoing winter has been re- 

 wmters cor d e( } authoritatively by the Royal Meteoro- 

 logical Society as the severest since 1814, the lowest 

 temperature registered in England being 11 degrees 

 below zero 43 degrees Fahrenheit of frost yet all 

 through the summer there was an unusual abundance 

 of butterflies, and Miss Ormerod reports officially that 

 injurious insects show no signs of diminution in that 

 season. The second or autumn hatches of butterflies 

 was unusually great. The pretty blues were never 

 more numerous on Hampshire downs than they were 

 in 1895 ; whereas in 1896, after a winter of extraordi- 

 nary mildness, they were remarkably scarce. In Sep- 

 tember of the former year, the brimstone, a rare insect 

 in autumn, unique among British butterflies in the 

 shape of its posterior wings, was flitting about the 

 osier-bed above described, recalling the months of the 

 spotted orchis and primrose; and peacocks and red 

 admirals pride of the shortening days came out un- 

 usually early. In mid- August, too, appeared the fore- 

 runners of a welcome visitation of the clouded yellow 



