X PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Mr. Spence read some observations upon the popular notion 

 that cold winters are effective in destroying insects, the accuracy 

 of which he had long doubted. In the spring of 1814, when a 

 continued severe frost of nearly three months froze over the 

 Thames so as to allow an ox to be roasted on the ice, one of the 

 first things which he observed was a numerous collection of the 

 caterpillars of the gooseberry-moth {Abraxas grossulariatd), under 

 the rim of a large flower-pot in his garden at Drypool near Hull, 

 which had been exposed out of doors to the full severity of the 

 cold, all perfectly alive and active, a fact which he thought worth 

 communicating to the Horticultural Society through a letter to 

 Sir Joseph Banks. This opinion, as to the little injury done to 

 insects by mere cold, he perceived was also entertained by the 

 Rev. Leonard Jenyns, in his very valuable and interesting " Ob- 

 servations in Natural History ;" that writer thinking it likely that 

 mild winters are generally more fatal to them, as being usually 

 attended by much rain, which finds its way into their most retired 

 hybernacula and drowns them in large numbers. Mr. Jenyns 

 concludes his remarks on this head by suggesting that " it would 

 be worth inquiring whether collectors of insects find their harvest 

 in summer depending at all upon the character of the preceding 

 winter, or at least upon its having been wet or dry." — p. 226. Tt 

 is to this suggestion that Mr. Spence begged to draw the attention 

 of the members, as the late severe winter afforded so good an 

 opportunity of testing the accuracy of the popular notion, and he 

 trusted that the members of the Society would observe when col- 

 lecting whether insects were less numerous next summer than 

 usual, and would communicate the result to the Society, one of the 

 most important objects of which is to collect and publish facts that 

 may refute or confirm prevalent opinions like that in question. In 

 a subsequent part of his work Mr. Jenyns remarks (p, 229 — 231) 

 that he never remembers such a dearth of insects, even of the 

 commonest species (except the cabbage butterfly), as in the 

 summer of 1845. It is well worth investigating, by reference to 

 meteorological tables, whether this dearth was owing to the wet or 

 cold of the preceding winter, oi', as Mr. Jenyns seems inclined 

 to believe, to the wet, cold, and cloudy summer itself. Mr. 

 Stephens observed, in confirmation of these opinions, that he had 

 noticed that hard dry winters were generally followed by great 

 quantities of insects in the following season, Mr. Saunders also 

 stated that he had found the larva of a species of NoctMO, feeding 

 unhurt and at large on Rumex acetosella, the day after the late 

 frost broke up. Mr. Ingpen had also found that of Arct'ia caja 



