28 OMENSETTER : 



The degree of cold which the majority of insects in their 

 various states, while torpid, are able to endure with impunity, 

 is very various. The habits of the different species, as to the 

 situation selected to withstand the Winter are regulated by 

 their greater or less sensibility in this respect. Many insects, 

 though able to sustain a degree of cold sufficient to induce 

 torpidity, would be destroyed by the freezing temperature, to 

 avoid which they penetrate the earth to hide themselves under 

 non-conducting substances. There can be little doubt that it 

 is with this view that so many species, while chrysalids, are 

 secured from cold by cocoons of silk or other materials. Yet 

 a very great proportion of insects, in all their stages, are 

 necessarily subjected to extremelj' low temperatures. Many 

 eggs and chrysalids are exposed to the air without any cover- 

 ing, and many, both larvee and perfect insects, are sheltered 

 too slightly to be immune from frost. This they are able to 

 resist, remaining unfrozen though exposed to the greatest 

 severity ; or, what is still more surprising, are uninjured by its 

 intensest action. They have recovered their vitality even 

 after turning into lumps of ice. , 



But though many larvae and chrysalids are able to resist a 

 very low temperature, when it falls to a certain extent they 

 yield to its influence and become solid masses of ice. In this 

 condition we might think their revival would be an impossi- 

 bility. That a creature whose juices, muscles and whole body 

 have been subjected to a process which splits bomb shells, 

 and so congealed that it may be snapped asunder like a piece 

 of glass, should ever- recover its vital powers, seems at first 

 view little less than a miracle. If the resuscitation of the 

 wheel animal and of snails, after years of dessication, had not 

 made us familiar with similar prodigies, such a feat might 

 have been pronounced impossible. It is probable that many 

 insects turned to ice never do revive. 



Of the return to life of several species, however, there is po 

 doubt. This was first noticed by Lister, who relates in his 

 work on insects that he found caterpillars so frozen that when 



