38 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



dead. Several were examined when found, and about one third of these 

 proved to be entirely congealed, the remainder being flexible and showing 

 signs of life when enclosed in the hand for a short time. The temperature 

 to which these had been exposed was several degrees below zero, and for a 

 couple of weeks scarcely ever more than i6 degrees above. Such collec- 

 tions of this species are not uncommon. I gathered up the full of a half 

 ounce collecting bottle, leaving fully as many behind. In the warmth of 

 my oflSce, in a couple of days, about one half of those collected became 

 active, though none that I regarded as frozen ever gave evidence of the 

 slightest vitality. 



During the very cold weather of last winter I found five specimens of 

 Lixus concavus embedded near one another in ice in a patch of Rumex 

 on low ground. A couple taken out without thawing appeared to be dead ; 

 sections were made in these in different directions with a sharp knife with- 

 out detecting any frozen tissue, or any frost in the cavities of the bodies. 

 The others were allowed to thaw out gradually and then they were dis- 

 covered to be alive. Their after history is somewhat curious. 



The tenacity of life possessed by this species has often been the sub- 

 ject of remark, and appears, from the following, to be greatly intensified 

 by the mysterious changes that accompany the condition of torpidity. 

 These three were thrown into strong alcohol, and on the third day were 

 taken out and pinned, the time they were in it being over sixty hours. 

 Five days afterwards they were observed to be alive and wriggling, their 

 limbs quite lively ; then they were pinned to the inner end of the cork 

 stopper of a bottle containing cyanide of potassium, and when examined 

 four days afterwards appeared to be as lively as when first pinned. How 

 long afterwards they lived is unknown, as a long interval occurred before 

 the next observation, and then they were truly dead. 



By the foregoing it must not be inferred that I maintain the freezing 

 of the tissues of torpid Coleoptera to be incompatible with the resumption 

 of the functions of life — an opinion that would be, to say the least, pre- 

 sumptuous in the face of the many opposite experiments and observations 

 by distinguished men. 



The subject is one full of mystery and deserves the most careful 

 attention. 



