5 MARCH 1948, Page 14

Winterers Winter homes are many and various. A very fine

peacock butterfly has been showing himself off in my study for a week or two. Doubtless in the way of his tribe he had entered the house to hibernate and been awakened by the warmth. Outside, a fallen elm has been and is being cut up by a number of people ; and one after another they have reported the discovery of queen wasps. I have seen three and one ladybird, all hibernating under the bark. There were probably a score or so secreted in this one tree, though wasps were almost totally absent in the late summer. The sulphur butterfly in my experience prefers the depths of an ivy tod. A newt under a pear-tree root, a dormouse in a beehive, a toad in a tennis-court post hole and a bat in a hollow willow are other hibernacula that occur to my memory.