INSECTS AND PLANTS IN MID-WINTER 5 



Simulium larvae. Insects of all kinds which pass the 

 winter as larva, pupa, or imago are nearly always 

 motionless in very cold weather. Yet not quite 

 always. I have seen (and many other naturalists 

 have seen the same) the great Water-beetle, Dytiscus, 

 swimming about beneath the ice on which I was 

 skating. How do the motionless pupae, sticking to 



X/Of) 

 FIG. 2. Coronet of hooks at tail-end of Simulium larva. 



the bark of a tree or to a gate-post, escape being 

 frozen ? 



Gilbert White, in his account of the great frost of 

 1776, says that a thaw set in on the ist of February, 

 " and on the 3rd swarms of little insects were frisking 

 and sporting in a court-yard at South Lambeth, as if 

 they had felt no frost. Why the juices in the small 

 bodies and smaller limbs of such minute beings are 



