About Orchids - A Chat by Frederick Boyle
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page 15 of 179 (08%)
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me--that I know because the slugs give very little trouble in spite of
the most favourable circumstances. You can always find frogs in my garden by looking for them, but of the thousands hatched every year, ninety-nine per cent. must vanish. Do blackbirds and thrushes eat young frogs? They are strangely abundant with me. But those who cultivate tadpoles must look over the breeding-pond from time to time. My whole batch was devoured one year by "devils"--the larvæ of _Dytiscus marginalis_, the Plunger beetle. I have benefited, or at least have puzzled my neighbours also by introducing to them another sort of frog. Three years ago I bought twenty-five Hyloe, the pretty green tree species, to dwell in my Odontoglossum house and exterminate the insects. Every ventilator there is covered with perforated zinc--to prevent insects getting in; but, by some means approaching the miraculous, all my Hyloe contrived to escape. Several were caught in the garden and put back, but again they found their way to the open-air; and presently my fruit-trees became vocal. So far, this is the experience of every one, probably, who has tried to keep green frogs. But in my case they survived two winters--one which everybody recollects, the most severe of this generation. My frogs sang merrily through the summer; but all in a neighbour's garden. I am not acquainted with that family; but it is cheering to think how much innocent diversion I have provided for its members. Pleasant also it is, by the way, to vindicate the character of green frogs. I never heard them spoken of by gardeners but with contempt. Not only do they persist in escaping; more than that, they decline to catch insects, sitting motionless all day long--pretty, if you like, but useless. The fact is, that all these creatures are nocturnal of habit. Very few men visit their orchid-houses at night, as I do constantly. They would see the frogs active enough then, creeping with wondrous |
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