‘I find August in England a rather torpid month. The trees and plants have all done their growing for the year and nature is hanging motionless in suspension before sinking slowly into the decline of winter. There is a brownish look to the countryside and the leaves are hanging heavy on the trees. But if it is nothing else, it is the month of the butterfly. Butterflies are lovely things. They do no harm to man himself either by stinging, biting or spreading disease. Nor are they beneficial to man as the silkworm is or the honeybee. The large white or cabbage butterfly is the only one that is a nuisance because it lays eggs on your cabbages and these hatch out into horrid hungry caterpillars …
‘August is, by the way, the month when young adders are born in heathy, hilly places, and baby grass snakes emerge from their eggs in rotting leaves and old compost heaps. It is the month when hedgehogs have their litters of babies, all born blind and helpless, and I’m afraid it is also the month when wasps come on the warpath, stinging humans in great numbers.’