AUGUST. 



175 



of thick dark paper, or any similar contrivance, turned 

 upside down on sticks, will catch a great many. 



Slugs, snails, centipedes and wood lice, are all very 

 injurious. 



After naming so many things which must be destroyed 

 for the preservation of our flowers, a few words may be 

 said on the more agi^eeable subject of those denizens of 

 the garden, the lives of which should be spared, because, 

 innocent themselves, they kill destroyers. First among 

 these are frogs and toads; I ought to say toads and 

 frogs, for the toads I believe are the more active in 

 eating injurious creatures in the garden — slugs, snails, 

 caterpillars, grubs, moths, and millipedes. By all means 

 spare the lives of the toads and frogs, and let them be 

 defended from injury. Catch one and put him wherever 

 the destructive wood lice abound, and you will find out 

 his merits. 



Moles are valuable in eating noxious grubs, so they 

 should be treated with mercy, although they must be 

 banished from under the lawn. Hedgehogs do good in 

 the garden, eating beetles, snails and slugs, and some- 

 times mice, which are very mischievous in eating any 

 seeds that eat nice — bulbs, and some other roots. Young 

 chickens must be kept safe from them. The shrew 

 mouse is an insect eater, and not a root and seed eater, 

 like the destructive field mouse. Bats also eat cock- 

 chafers (one of the most destructive among insects), 

 moths, and such like winged things. 



Snakes, slow worms, and lizards, are all industrious 

 destroyers of slugs, and do no harm to counterbalance 

 this great good. So by all means let them live. 



The pretty little lady bii^d should be respected and 

 cherished as the great enemy to, and devourer of, the 

 aphides. I believe the perfect insects, as well as 

 their larvm eat these pests of the flower garden. The 

 larvce are flattish, fleshy grubs, tapering to the tail ; they 

 have no legs, but are very active. 



Mole crickets disturb the earth a little, but they de- 

 vour grubs. Glowworms eat snails, and their relative, 

 DriliLs flavescens, does the same. All beetles are not to 

 be condemned, as some of them are enemies to the 



