COUNTRY LIFE
THE vans, equipped with ladders, that toured the country on the eve of this Christmas to get holly berries' for the urban celebrators, cut a deal but secured few corals." It was not a berry district ; and even country folk had trouble to secure more than a sprig for their Christmas pudding. Some ingenious persons fixed hips on to their holly boughs, and hips are always in plenty. In searching for berried boughs along a hedgerow I had an unexpected discovery. There was a tall bush of hornbeam very heavily hung with " keys," which seemed to me to have perhaps some decorative value. On the point of picking one twig, 1 found that the brown cases (from which the seed had fallen) were inhabited by hibernating lady- birds, a popular and most useful beetle whose ways are attracting the special attention of our entomologists. An amateur in this field kindly looked up his war diary to verify a reference to the hibernation of lady- birds. In August, 1943, he found them in their hundreds on the upper slopes of Mount Etna. They seem to be as numerous this year as queen wasps, which a number of people, myself included, have found massed in crowded hihernacula. Potting-sheds are favourite places ; so, in my experience, are empty bee-hives and hen-houses.
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