DEFIERS OF FROST. 163 



cold. Those of the mag-pie moth, exposed all through the 

 winter on a leafless currant bush, will sometimes become stiff 

 as the twigs they occupy, and those of the cabbage butterfly 

 subjected to a frost which turned them into lumps of ice,"* 

 arrived, nevertheless, at their perfect state. 



Other insects would seem to be endowed with the same power 

 of resisting cold. Amongst these, are gnats and mosquitos, 

 which, as attested by recent travellers, have risen, an active 

 swarm, from dissolved masses of ice, wherein they have lain 

 imbedded thick as plums in a Christinas pudding. 



Nor is it only against the "Demon Frost' that these 

 determined insect occupiers are accustomed to bar the doors 

 of their Lilliputian tenements, a variety of them having been 

 found to shew ecjual contempt of flood, fire, famine, and steel, 

 those other bailiffs employed as often, in executions, by the 

 universal tyrant. 



To exemplify, next, the resistance of insect vitality against 

 the power of water. There is a certain beetle called the 

 Printer,^ because while feeding as a grub upon the under 

 bark of trees, it cuts out therein a variety of tracks resembling 

 letters; and to such an extent was this species of type en- 

 graving once carried on, that a million and a half of pines are 

 said to have been sacrificed in the Hartz Forest J to supply 

 material for the work. It became, of course, desirable to 



* By Reamner. f Bostrichiis typographicus. 



\ In 1783, Kirhy and Spence. 



VOL. II. L 



