406 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



will waken a person whom no noise could rouse. In 

 the order of their awaking again, taste and smell are 

 always last, and sight appears more difficult to awaken 

 than hearing ; for a slight noise will often rouse a 

 sleep-walker, who had borne an intense light on his 

 unshut eyes, without seeming in the least to feel its 

 influence.* 



The torpidity of insects during winter, which in 

 some of its circumstances is analogous to sleep, will 

 require the less to be discussed here, that we have, 

 under our three former divisions of Eggs, Pupae, and 

 Larvae, considered it very amply. The number of 

 insects, indeed, which hybernate in the perfect state 

 are comparatively few. Of the brimstone-butterfly 

 {Gonepteryx Rhamni), Mr. Stephens tells us the se- 

 cond brood appears in autumn, " and of the latter," 

 he adds, "many individuals of both sexes remain 

 throughout the winter, and make their appearance on 

 the first sunny day in spring. I have seen them 

 sometimes so early as the middle of February."t 

 The commonly perfect state of the wings in such 

 cases might, we think, lead to the contrary con- 

 clusion, that the butterfly has just been evolved 

 from its chrysalis. Several other species, however, 

 chiefly of the genus Vanessa, do live through the 

 winter in the perfect state ; but this, as far as ge- 

 neral observation extends, can only be affirmed 

 of the female. Yet will insects bear almost incre- 

 dible degrees of cold with impunity. Out of the 

 multiplicity of instances of this on record we shall 

 select two. In Newfoundland, Captain Buchan saw 

 a lake, which in the evening was entirely still and 

 frozen over, but as soon as the sun had dissolved the 

 ice in the morning, it was all in a bustle of anima- 

 tion, in consequence, as was discovered, of myriads 



* Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et Moral. 

 •}• Illustrations, vol. i. p. 9. 



