290 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
found and preyed upon, not so when the surface is covered with 
snow or frozen hard; though exposed pupe, &c., are then the 
more eagerly sought after and obtained. Last winter I had a 
specimen of Depressaria Alstremeriella in a certain place, which 
never moved from November, 1878 (it was possibly there some- 
what earlier) until April 8th, 1879. Imperfect or disturbed 
hybernation is always destructive ; that is, the application of cold 
after vitality is resumed by the hybernator is mostly fatal. Of 
this I have experienced several instances, and it is on this 
principle the ice-house treatment of hybernating larve is recom- 
mended. Late and severe frosts after mild weather are far more 
destructive to insect life than a persistently hard winter. In the 
‘Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer’ (vol. i1., p. 21), Mr. H. 
Cooke recorded a curious instance of these injurious effects of 
sudden cold. He says—‘‘ On 10th April, 1857, at two o’clock, 
the thermometer was 80°, and white butterflies were plentiful; 
on the 1lth, at the same hour, the thermometer was down to 
50°, and many butterflies were picked up dead.” Wet is, I think, 
a much greater enemy to insect-life than cold; all breeders of 
Lepidoptera know the deleterious effects of excessive damp on 
pupe. Larve also suffer greatly from disease occasioned by 
excessive moisture in their food. This year, however, great 
quantities of insects have been actually drowned, although there 
are people who believe the fact of drowning an insect to be 
an impossibility. In walking over a twenty-acre field of red 
clover, on August 20th, I picked up fourteen specimens of 
P. gamma larvee from the flooded furrows; these were quite hard 
and distended. I carried them home carefully, but not one 
recovered. The total destruction of these larve in this field 
alone by the heavy rain must have been considerable. 
From the above remarks it will be gathered that the wet 
summer has altogether had much more effect on insect-life in 
1879 than has the severe winter; scarcity of imagos this year, 
however, will not serve as sufficient data on which to forecast a 
like scarcity next, though the ungenial pairing-time may have its 
effects on many isolated species. As in 1860, so in 1879, many 
lepidopterous larvee have occurred in unwonted abundance. I 
could mention many species; in one garden quite a plague of 
Arctia lubricipeda, A. menthastri, and Mamestra persicarié had 
eaten up every green thing, and were feeding on ivy, laurel, and 
