CHAP. V. VITALITY OP INSECTS. 173 



(Stratyomys Chamceleon Fab.) will retain its vital powers 

 for forty-eight hours after being immersed in spirits of 

 wine. This insect seems to possess an uncommon 

 portion of vitality, for Godart informs us that it will 

 live nine months without food ! Luckless flies, which, 

 while sipping the sweets of wine at the neck of bottles, 

 have fallen in, have been known to revive in the sun, 

 after the bottle has been uncorked. Mr. Curtis im- 

 mersed four plant-lice (Aphides} in water for sixteen 

 hours : when taken out, three survived the experiment ; 

 but a second immersion, of twenty-four hours, proved 

 fatal. In the boiling sulphureous springs of Abano, 

 are found numbers of small black beetles, which died 

 upon being taken out and plunged into cold water. 

 This extraordinary fact, Mr. Kirby tells us, was com- 

 municated to him by the celebrated Jones, of Nayland, 

 one of the brightest ornaments of the Christian church. 

 It is really surprising that an intensity of cold, which 

 is not only inconvenient, but painful, to the human 

 constitution, can be endured, and even enjoyed, by 

 these minute and delicate creatures. De Geer saw some 

 larvae of gnats that had survived after the water in 

 which they were was frozen into a mass of ice ; and, 

 even in a winter's day, we see a few little insects 

 stealing from their hiding places, and enjoying them- 

 selves in the momentary gleam of a December sun. 

 The vitality of insects is shown, also, in the little 

 comparative pain they appear to feel from injuries, 

 which to us would occasion excruciating torment or 

 instant death. A violent or unnatural turn of our 

 leg or arm will produce a sprain or dislocation, which 

 may last for ever; while the loss of one of these 

 members, by violent means, is generally followed by 

 death. But these accidents, to the insect world, pro- 

 duce no such effects. A luckless Tipula, or crane fly, 

 in the rude hands of a thoughtless boy, will fly away 

 with the loss of half its legs ; and a specimen of Scolia 

 quadrimaculata, a large wasp-like insect of Southern 

 Europe, has been known to free itself from the pin 



