194 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



The garden-lover can scarcely fail to be some- 

 thing of a bird-lover too (though when the sparrows 

 destroy his crocuses he sometimes dissembles his 

 love), and he will rejoice that in the recesses of his 

 ivy are sundry welcome nesting-places, while his 

 entomological tastes will be gratified by the visits 

 of the holly blue, a graceful little butterfly that finds 

 in its larval stage welcome pabulum in the holly and 

 ivy, and therefore selects these plants on which to 

 lay its eggs. During the flowering season of the 

 ivy many insects, butterflies, night-flying moths and 

 others are attracted to its dull-looking blossoms and 

 find welcome refreshment. While ivy, from its 

 evergreen character, ensures us at all seasons a 

 verdant mantling, it has the grievous disadvantage 

 of being a great harbourage for snails, and these 

 are terribly destructive. It is very trying when 

 some friend has sent one a rather choice thing, 

 and it is planted with every care, to find next 

 morning that the stem has been eaten through 



when the divine afflatus failed the practical Poole might come 

 to the rescue and set matters jogging on again by supplying 

 the missing word. We find little or no suggestion of the 

 destructiveness of the ivy, unless victorious or encroaching 

 may be accepted, but if we desire to apostrophise the plant 

 we have an abundance of choice left. To call it clasping, 

 clinging, twining, embracing, flattering, fawning, amorous, 

 ambitious, wriggling, winding, snakie, crawling, twirling, 

 hugging, wandering, spreading, clambering, are but a few 

 of the terms at our service. Some of them strike us as being 

 hardly up to Parnassian standard. 



