212 BRITISH FERTILITY. 



other parts of England and Scotland that I visited, 

 they were more abundant than chipmunks in our 

 beechen woods. The revenue derived from the sale 

 of the ground game on some estates is an important 

 item. The rabbits are slaughtered in untold num- 

 bers throughout the island. They shoot them, and 

 mint them with ferrets, and catch them in nets and 

 gins and snares, and they are the principal game of 

 the poacher, and yet the land is alive with them. 

 Thirty million skins are used up annually in Great 

 Britain, besides several million hare skins. The fur 

 is used for stuffing beds, and is also made into yarn 

 and cloth. 



But the Colorado beetle is our own, and it shows 

 many of the European virtues. It is sufficiently pro- 

 lific and persistent to satisfy any standard ; but we 

 cannot claim all the qualities for it till it has crossed 

 the Atlantic and established itself on the other side. 



There are other forms of life in which we surpass 

 the mother country. I did not hear the voice of frog 

 or toad while I was in England. Their marshes 

 were silent ; their summer nights were voiceless. I 

 longed for the multitudinous chorus of my own bog ; 

 for the tiny silver bells of our hyloides, the long- 

 drawn and soothing tr-r-r-r-r of our twilight toads, 

 and the rattling drums, kettle and bass, of our pond 

 frogs. Their insect world, too, is far behind ours ; 

 no fiddling grasshoppers, no purring tree-crickets, no 

 scraping katydids, no whirring cicadas ; no sounds 

 from any of these sources by meadow or grove, by 



