244 LEAF-BUTTONS. 



its little inhabitant, still protected by the exterior walls, 

 weaves within it a silken cocoon, and undergoes his final 

 transformations. 



A June ramble in Highgate wood furnished us, last summer, 

 with two most elegant specimens of the leaf-rolling combined 

 with the" leaf-cutting art. A number of young oak-leaves 

 having been each roughly cut across the centre from the edge 

 lip to the mid-rib, the half comprising the tip was formed into 

 a hard compact roll, of exquisite neatness, closely resembling 

 a barrel-button.* In the centre of each was a bright yellow 

 egg, but how it had got there (seeing that there was no visible 

 opening for the ingress or egress of its layer) was and remains 

 a question as puzzling to us, as, according to Pindaric record, 

 was once to royal brains the advent of the apple in the dump- 

 ling. Neither do we know at present by what ingenious in- 

 sect these oak-leaf buttons were manufactured, or eggs depo- 

 sited within them, not one of the latter having come to light, 

 in a living form, out of numerous rolls which we have had in 

 our keeping for above a year ; this is owing perhaps to lack of 

 moisture ; for it has since occurred to us that the fall of the 

 leaves must supply their button-like appendages with a bed of 

 damp earth or moss, wanting in the box to which we con- 

 signed our gathered specimens. 



In the same wood, on the same day, we noticed certain 

 leaves of the hazel, cut and rolled in a form much more grace- 

 ful if not more curious than the above. These leaves, as 



* Vignette. 



