NATURE'S CALENDAR 



January 14 



found along the northern border of the 

 United States, and are sometimes col- 

 lected in midwinter. " Some arctic spe- 

 cies [of butterflies] are known in which 

 the development from the egg to the per- 

 fect insect covers a period of two or three 

 years, long periods of hibernation under 

 the arctic snows taking place." 



Such highly organized, long-lived aris- 

 tocrats among the insects as the bees, 

 wasps, and ants, most of whom live either 

 in well-built community houses or in bur- 

 rows, where they store provisions and are 

 warmly sheltered, get through an ordi- 

 nary winter with little trouble or sufifer- 

 ing, sleeping away the coldest parts of it 

 in semi-torpidity. Of course, the farther 

 south you go the more numerous and ac- 

 tive are these and all other insects, though 

 insects are much more scarce in winter 

 than in summer, even in the borders of 

 the tropics. But, after all, the vast ma- 

 jority of insects, taking all kinds together, 

 die ofT in the autumn, so that in thousands 

 of groups not a single adult individual 

 exists when the first snow comes. 



How, then, is their race maintained so 

 that they appear as numerously as ever 

 upon the return of warm weather? In 

 this way: The females lay eggs. Some- 

 times these hatch quickly into larvae (or 

 grubs) and these become pupae (chrysalids 

 in a cocoon), and perhaps by that time, if 

 the species be double-brooded, the mother 

 has deposited in some suitable place a 



January 15 



