NATURE'S CALENDAR 



January lo 



rowing crickets might be dug out of their 

 burrows, if we knew where they were, and 

 a good many locusts and grasshoppers hi- 

 bernate in sheltered places. Among the 

 true bugs {Hemiptej-d) far too many are 

 alive all winter, for here come the various 

 lice and scale insects infesting trees and 

 fruit, and many other unpleasant forms. 

 Of larger sorts, most perish with the first 

 frosts, but here and there an adult will 

 hibernate successfully, and of the aquatic 

 forms a large proportion remain at the 

 bottoms of their ponds, ditches, and 

 streams all winter, torpid in the mud 

 about the plant roots, or perhaps active. 



Beetles, from the nature of their struct- 

 ure, are more hardy, and a great many 

 survive in the imago form from autumn 

 to spring, though these form only a small 

 proportion, after all, of the total. The 

 ladybirds, for example, hibernate numer- 

 ously under bark, in barns and similar 

 wooden places of shelter, as also do the 

 flea-beetles so injurious to grapes. The 

 potato beetles and allied forms, such as 

 the asparagus beetle, burrow down below 

 the frost- line and become torpid; one 

 apple-borer {Amphicerus) cuts out a win- 

 ter-chamber for itself in the tree-wood ; 

 and weevils hibernate largely as imagos, 

 creeping into crevices of bark, under rot- 

 ting leaves, or anywhere else that seems to 

 them snug. Examples of many smaller 

 kinds, then, might be taken in midwinter 

 by a diligent collector, but of the large. 



January ii 



