4-38 HYBERNATION OF INSECTS. 



scions of the deceptions nature of their pleasurable feel- 

 ings, and that no food could then be procured, never 

 quit their quarters, but quietly wait for a renewal of their 

 insensibility by a fresh accession of cold. 



On this head I have had an opportunity of making 

 some observations which, in the paucity of recorded 

 facts on the hybernation of insects, you may not be sorry 

 to have laid before you. The 2nd of December 1816 

 was even finer than many of the preceding days of the 

 season, which so happily falsified the predictions that 

 the unprecedented dismal summer would be followed by 

 a severe winter. The thermometer was 46 in the 

 shade; not a breath of air was stirring; and a bright 

 sun imparted animation to troops of the winter gnat 

 ( TricJiocera hiemalis\ which frisked under every bush ; 

 to numerous Psychodte ; and even to the flesh-fly, of 

 which two or three individuals buzzed past me while 

 digging in my garden* Yet though these insects, which 

 I shall shortly advert to as exceptions to the general 

 rule, were thus active, the heat was not sufficient 

 to induce their hybernating brethren to quit their re- 

 treats. Removing some of the dead bark of an old 

 apple-tree, I soon discovered several insects in their 

 winter quarters. Of the little beetle Lcbia quadrinotata^ 

 Duftschmid Faun. Austr. (Carabus punctomaculatus, Ent. 

 Brit.), I found six or eight individuals, and all so lively, 

 that though remaining perfectly quiet in their abode un- 

 til disturbed, they ran about with their ordinary activity 

 as soon as the covering of bark was displaced. The 

 same was the case with a colony of earwigs. Two or 

 three individuals of Lebia quadrimaculata showed more 

 torpidity. When first uncovered, their antennae were 



