PLANTS AND ANIMALS IN WINTER. 503 



open discloses a half dozen or more " horn " or " bess beetles " 

 great, shining, clumsy, black fellows with a curved horn on the 

 head. They are often utilized as horses by country children, the 

 horn furnishing an inviting projection to which may be fastened, 

 by a thread or cord, chips and pieces of bark to be dragged about 

 by the strong and never lagging beast of burden. When tired of 

 "playing horse" they can make of the insect an instrument of 

 music, for, when held by the body, it emits a creaking, hissing 

 noise, produced by rubbing the abdomen up and down against 

 the inside of the hard, horny wing covers. This beetle passes its 

 entire life in cavities in the rotten wood on which it feeds, and 

 when it wishes a larger or more commodious home it has only to 

 eat the more. 



The handsome and beneficial lady beetles winter beneath 

 fallen leaves or between and beneath the root leaves of the mul- 

 lein and the thistle. Our most common species, the thirteen- 

 spotted lady beetle, is gregarious, collecting together by thou- 

 sands on the approach of cold weather, and Ij'ing huddled up like 

 sheep until a "breath of spring" gives them the signal to dis- 

 perse. Snout beetles galore can be found beneath piles of weeds 

 near streams and the borders of ponds or beneath chunks and 

 logs in sandy places. All are injurious, and the farmer by burn- 

 ing their hibernating places in winter can cause their destruction 

 in numbers. Rove beetles, ground beetles, and many others live 

 deep down in the vegetable mold beneath old logs, where they 

 are, no doubt, as secure from the breath of the ice king as if they 

 had followed the swallow to the tropics. 



Of the Dipfera, or flies, but few forms winter in the perfect 

 state, yet the myriads of house flies and their kin, which next 

 summer will distract the busy housewife, are represented in 

 winter by a few isolated individuals which creep forth occasion- 

 ally from crevice or cranny and greet us with a friendly buzz. 



In midwinter one may also often see in the air swarms of 

 small, gnatlike insects. They belong to this order, and live be- 

 neath the bark of freshly fallen beech and other logs. On warm, 

 sunny days they go forth in numbers for a sort of rhythmical 

 courtship; their movements while in the air being peculiar in 

 that they usually rise and fall in the same vertical line flitting 

 up and down in a dreamy, dancing sort of motion. 



Among the dozen or more butterflies and moths which winter 

 in the perfect state the most common and the most handsome is 

 the " Camberwell Beauty " or " Mourning Cloak," a large butter- 

 fly whose wings are a rich purplish brown above, duller beneath, 

 and broadly margined with a yellowish band. It is often found 

 in winter beneath chunks which are raised a short distance above 

 the ground or in the crevices of old snags and fence rails. It is 



