HYBERNATION OF INSECTS. 441 



Lastly, there are some few insects which do not 

 seem ever to be torpid, as Podura nivalis, L., and the 

 singular apterous insect recently described by Dalman, 

 Chionea araneo'ides a , both of which run with agility on 

 the snow itself; and the common hive-bee ; though with 

 regard to the precise state in which this last passes the 

 winter, this part of its economy has not been made the 

 subject of such accurate investigation as is desirable. 



Many authors have conceived that it is the most na- 

 tural state of bees in winter to be perfectly torpid at a 

 certain degree of cold, and that their partial reviviscency, 

 and consequent need of food in our climate, are owing 

 to its variableness and often comparative mildness in 

 winter; whence they have advised placing bees during 

 this season in an ice-house, or on the north side of a 

 wall, where the degree of cold being more uniform, and 

 thus their torpidity undisturbed, they imagine no food 

 would be required. So far, however, do these supposi- 

 tions and conclusions seem from being warranted, that 

 Huber expressly affirms that, instead of being torpid in 

 winter, the heat in a well-peopled hive continues -f- 24 

 or 25 of Reaumur (86 Fahrenheit), when it is several 

 degrees below zero in the open air; that they then 

 cluster together and keep themselves in motion in order 



ary 1817, 1 turned up in three or four places colonies of Myrmica 

 rubra, Latr. in their winter retreats, each of which comprised ap- 

 parently one or two hundred ants, with several larvae as big as a 

 grain of mustard, closely clustered together, occupying a cavity the 

 size of a hen's egg, in tenacious clay, at the depth of six inches 

 from the surface. They were very lively ; but though Fahrenheit's 

 thermometer stood at 47 in the shade, I did not then, nor at any 

 other time during the very mild winter, see a single ant out of its 

 hybernaculum. a Kongl. Vet. Acad. Handling. 1816. 104. 



