PRAIRIE ANIMALS 205 
III. GENERAL DISCUSSION 
One of the striking peculiarities of the prairie formation is the almost 
complete cessation of life activities of all the smaller animals in winter. 
In this respect the prairie animals follow the plants. In spring we find 
chiefly the insignificant seedling that has sprouted from bulb or seed, 
and the nymph that has just hatched from the egg. As the season 
advances the plants become adult, the majority of these reaching 
maturity with the animals in midsummer. 
Fic. 306.—The dock curculio (Lixus concavus Say): a, adult; 6, egg; c,d, newly 
hatched and full-grown larva; e, pupa; f, tip of pupa from above; about twice natural 
size (from Forbes after Chittenden, Div. Ent., U.S. Dept. Agr.). 
The low prairie is of interest because of its relation to the eastern 
forest region. Many if not most of the low prairie forms probably 
originally occurred in the marshes of the eastern forest region and the 
river-bottom swales of the prairie and great plains. Many of them 
(such as place their eggs into plants) are quite independent of the ground, 
and therefore are most likely to survive under conditions of cultivation 
where mesophytic plants are favored and the cultivation of the soil 
does not interfere with their activities. 
