All this was duly executed yesterday. I had been watching the leaves for some time, as I wanted them to be quite yellow; and I now flatter myself with having a very grand display next year.
I had also many cuttings to make, and seedlings to plant out, as well as layers of pinks and carnations, and various plants to trim and tie up; besides the daily occupations of weeding, watering, pruning, and earthing.
9th.—I have just found the most curious miniature cocoons of yellow cotton, sticking on a chrysalis of the cabbage caterpillar. Some time ago I put up two of these caterpillars in paper boxes; they were regularly fed, and made quite comfortable; and now though one is a perfectly sound chrysalis, the other is only an empty skin. In the little book which I have so often mentioned, Mary shewed me the cause of this in the dialogue between Lucy and her mother on ichneumons; it was from their eggs, which were deposited in the body of the caterpillar, that the maggots proceeded who destroyed it, and then spun those pretty little yellow cocoons. It is a great pleasure, mamma, to have traced a curious fact of this kind for myself, and actually to have seen one chrysalis dwelling in another. These ichneumons must be very useful in thus destroying other mischievous insects: Reaumur found, that out of thirty common cabbage caterpillars which he put into a glass to feed, twenty-five were killed by an ichneumon; and my aunt says, that if the myriads of caterpillars which prey on our vegetables, are compared with the small number of butterflies that they usually produce, it will appear that they are destroyed in a still larger proportion. This is one of the innumerable instances of the goodness of Providence, which balances the necessary evils of one tribe of animals by the instinctive efforts of another.
My aunt told me, that in St. Domingo the cassada and indigo plantations are materially injured by a large caterpillar. When it changes to its last robe of sea-green, its tortures begin; a swarm of ichneumon flies fasten themselves all over the poor victim, drive their stings into the skin, and then deposit their eggs in the wounds they have made. The caterpillar swells and becomes of a deeper green, and in a fortnight, when the eggs are hatched, it appears covered with little worms, which start out of every pore. The existence of these worms is but short; after raising themselves on one end, shaking their heads, and swinging themselves in every direction, each of them begins to form its cocoon; and in two hours the caterpillar is completely clothed in a white robe. In eight days the ichneumon flies are hatched, and the little cocoons they leave behind are composed of a very fine silky cotton of the most dazzling whiteness, which may be used without any preparation, as soon as the flies have quitted them.
The quantity of this glossy substance, produced by the millions of those little parasites, is so great, that it is said a single person has collected a bushel in two hours. But the chief importance of their services is, the keeping within bounds the mischievous cassada caterpillars; and as these caterpillars are destroyed by heavy rain, it has even been proposed to collect and put them under cover as soon as the ichneumon’s eggs are deposited, in order to multiply these useful insects.
10th.—June is really a most lovely month here;—the trees are clothed in foliage of the freshest green, and flowers are scattered everywhere in profusion. Mowing is just beginning, and everybody looks busy, active, and cheerful.
I was very happy yesterday; we went to see the sheep-shearing at Farmer Moreland’s; it seemed to be almost a festival, and was conducted with a degree of regularity and ceremony that was quite amusing. Caroline delights in these rural employments; and we were all allowed to go there early in the morning. We found the sheep enclosed in a fold under the shade of an ash-grove, and the shearers seated on the knotted roots of some of the old trees. Dame Moreland gave us some brown bread and new milk; and before the day grew very hot we returned home. In the evening, however, having dined early, we returned to the pretty grove and the poor bleating sheep, whom I could not help pitying when thrown down to be shorn; though they looked a great deal more comfortable as soon as they were relieved from their thick hot clothing.
I saw some of them washed a day or two before the shearing began; their fleeces were well rubbed and rinced in the stream, and then the poor creatures ran to a sunny bank,
Where, bleating loud, they shook their dripping locks.
My uncle told me that England has been always famous for its sheep and their rich fleeces, the various qualities of which are so well suited to the different branches of our woollen manufactures; but it is the Downs of Dorsetshire, and all the southern and western counties, which supply those sheep whose fleeces are employed in making the finest broad cloth.