1909] The Ottawa Naturalist. 129 



"SNOW-WORMS." 

 By Arthur Gibson. 



An interesting occurrence of these so-called worms was 

 brought to the writer's attention in February last. Mr. Lawrence 

 W. Watson, of Charlottetown, P.E.I., sent to me some living 

 specimens of coleopterous larvae, with the statement that they 

 were abundant in a field which was covered with ice of several 

 inches thickness. In a second letter dated March 5th, Mr. 

 Watson says: "I am now able to give you further particulars 

 concerning the larvae of which I wrote to you a short time ago. 

 The first lot of specimens were collected on February 14th. 

 February 11th, and 12th were fine, cold days. On February 

 13th we had a thaw followed by cold, and strong wind. February 

 14th was very cold. The second appearance w^as on Februar}^ 

 23rd. On the 20th there was rain, but frost at night; 21st and 

 22nd were fine, cold daA^s. On the 23rd it was cold and there 

 were some snow flurries. Upon this occasion the larvae were 

 not so numerous. On the former appearance there were about 

 two or three to the square foot of ground; upon the second 

 occasion the}^ were more scattered. To-day they are very 

 numerous and occur more in bunches. March 2nd was mild 

 with snow at night. The 3rd was fairly mild; yesterday we had 

 a "silver thaw." To-day it is mild. In every case the larvae 

 were found in fields and 50 or 100 yards from trees. They were 

 not seen on bare ground, always on ice or snow of a depth of 

 two to six inches. To-day they are very active on snow." 



Some of the larvae sent bv Mr. Watson were fon\'arded to 

 Dr. L. O. Howard, thfe United States Entomologist, at Wash- 

 ington, D.C. As Dr. Howard's letter in reply gives much interest- 

 ing information I quote it in full: 



"The larvae sent by vou with your letter of February' 26th, 

 and which were found alive on ice at Charlottetown, Prince 

 Edward Island, are what are known as 'snow-worms.' These 

 are the larvae of the Lampvrid (Telephorid) genus Telephorus, 

 commonly called soldier beetles. They hibernate in the ground 

 among the roots of grasses and when, in wintertime, a peculiar 

 combination of climatic conditions prevails melting snow, the 

 ground soaked with water, the temperature above freezing 

 point the larvae appear above ground, often in enormous 

 numbers of specimens, and crawl about on the surface of the 

 snow. Such climatic conditions, however, do not occur every 

 vear, and consequently the interesting phenomenon of seeing 

 multitudes of snow- worms is by no means a common one. 

 However, single specimens of Telephorus larvae may be seen 

 everv vear on the surface of snow. 



