A GARDEN IN VENICE 



its way into and down the stalk of the cluster, 

 cutting a hole of escape when full grown and 

 leaving its nursery dead behind it. 



They tell one of cures that kill these pests, but 

 I have found none so efficacious as handpicking. 



Then we have the bobolo in too prolific 

 numbers ; a strange snail both male and female 

 each of itself, and yet forming a connection with 

 another double-sexed bobolo when mating. These 

 snails are edible, and for that reason it has been 

 difficult to keep them under. The garden boys 

 catch the large ones in hundreds, and do not care 

 perhaps to destroy the breed, as they can sell 

 them to men who put them in earthen jars to 

 make them firm and white, and about Christmas 

 sell them again, when they are eaten as we eat 

 oysters. 



The locust, too, visits us, and crowds of lovely 

 white butterflies that I have learned to see killed 

 with cruel acquiescence, in protection or in 

 revenge of my spoiling and spoilt cauliflowers. 



And mosquitoes, that have become scarce since 

 our artesian well was made. The water from 

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