BOOK OF THE DAMNED 93 



had been brought to the surface of the ground by rain, which had 

 fallen previously. 



Scientific American, Feb. 21, 1891: 



"A puzzling phenomenon has been noted frequently in some parts 

 of the Valley Bend District, Randolph County, Va., this winter. 

 The crust of the snow has been covered two or three times with 

 worms resembling the ordinary cut worms. Where they come from, 

 unless they fall with the snow is inexplicable." In the Scientific 

 American, Mar. 7, 1891, the Editor says that similar worms had 

 been seen upon the snow near Utica, N. Y., and in Oheida and Her- 

 kimer Counties; that some of the worms had been sent to the 

 Department of Agriculture at Washington. Again two species, or 

 polymorphism. According to Prof. Riley, it was not polymorphism, 

 "but two distinct species" which, because of our data, we doubt. 

 One kind was larger than the other: color-differences not distinctly 

 stated. One is called the larvae of the common soldier beetle and 

 the other "seems to be a variety of the bronze cut worm." No 

 attempt to explain the occurrence in snow. 



Fall of great numbers of larvae of beetles, near Mortagne, France, 

 May, 1858. The larvae were inanimate as if with cold. (Annales 

 Society Entomologique de France, 1858.) 



Trans. Ent. Soc. of London, 1871-183, records "snowing of 

 larvae," in Silesia, 1806; "appearance of many larvae on the snow," 

 in Saxony, 1811; "larvae found alive on the snow," 1828; larvae 

 and snow which "fell together," in the Eifel, Jan. 30, 1847; "fett 

 of insects," Jan. 24, 1849, m Lithuania; occurrence of larvae esti- 

 mated at 300,000 on the snow in Switzerland, in 1856. The com- 

 piler says that most of these larvae live underground, or at the roots 

 of trees j- that whirlwinds uproot trees, and carry away the larvae- 

 conceiving of them as not held in masses of frozen earth all as 

 neatly detachable as currants in something. In the Revue et 

 Magasin de Zoologie, 1849-72, there is an account of the fall in 

 Lithuania, Jan. 24, 1849 that black larvae had fallen in enormous 

 numbers. 



Larvae thought to have been of beetles, but described as "cater- 

 pillars," not seen to fall, but found crawling on the snow, after a 

 snowstorm, at Warsaw, Jan. 20, 1850. (All the Year Round, 

 8-253.) 



Flammarion (The Atmosphere, p. 414) tells of a fall of larvae 

 that occurred Jan. 30, 1869, in a snowstorm, in Upper Savoy: 

 "They could not have been hatched in the neighborhood, for, during 



