WATER INSECTS. 315 



frozen soil for a long period; yet they, their young, 

 and the onisci, were perfectly uninjured by it ; 

 affording another proof of the fallacy of the com- 

 monly-received opinion, that cold is universally de- 

 structive to insect life. Some creatures may be 

 injured or destroyed by frost; but the larger portion 

 of them Nature has provided with constitutions to 

 which it is innocuous, or furnished with instinct to 

 prevent its harming them. These emmets had 

 probably received no sustenance, or required any, 

 from the time of their retirement in the autumn a 

 period of full six months ; were inclosed during the 

 space of thirty days in a mass of frozen earth, 

 and yet remained perfectly uninjured by this long 

 abstinence and frost. 



Water, in a state of rest over decayed and pu- 

 trescent vegetable matter, is peculiarly favourable 

 for the residence of many of the insect world. The 

 eggs that are lodged there remain undisturbed by 

 the agitation of the element, and the young pro- 

 duced from them, or deposited there by viviparous 

 creatures, remain in quiet, tolerably secure from ac- 

 cidental injuries ; but there are natural causes which 

 render these apparent asylums the fields of ravenous- 

 ness and of death. To these places resort many of 

 those voracious insects and other creatures which . 

 prey upon the smaller and helpless ; for all created 

 things seem subordinate to some more powerful 

 or irresistible agent, from the hardly visible atom 

 that floats in the pool, to man, who claims and 

 commands the earth as his own. But we have 



