CHAP. VIII. HYBERNATION OP INSECTS. 24*3 



sometimes have in winter, infuses a partial animation 

 into th3 stiffened animal : if disturbed, its limbs and 

 antennae resume their power of extension ; and even the 

 faculty of spurting out their defensive fluid is re-ac- 

 quired by many beetles. But, however mild the atmo- 

 sphere in winter, the great bulk of hybernating insects, 

 as if conscious of the deceptive nature of their pleasur- 

 able feelings, 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."* 



(260.) Insects, whether in the egg or pupa state, are, 

 by the efforts of instinct, placed in such situations as 

 will best secure them from the effects of cold. Thus, 

 the majority of the grasshoppers, as well as several other 

 insects, insinuate their eggs deep into the earth, where 

 they will be out of the reach of frost ; while the female 

 of Bombyx Neustria covers hers with an unusually 

 strong and hard shell, and gums them in bracelets round 

 the twigs of hawthorn, &c. firmly securing them to the 

 bark with a very adhesive gum : thus they are protected 

 from the blasts and storms of winter, and, being impene- 

 trable to rain, they remain uninjured. Those insects 

 which continue, during winter, in the pupa state, are 

 often protected by cocoons of silk and other materials ; 

 but such as are more hardy, as the pupae of the common 

 cabbage butterflies, receive no injury from being naked, 

 although they are usually suspended in some such shel- 

 tered situation, as the corners of palings, the south side 

 of walls, &c. Those, on the other hand, which hyber- 

 nate in the larva state, either conceal themselves in 

 some hole or cavity ; or, if aquatic, bore into the sand 

 or mud, round the pools which they inhabit. It is a 

 most extraordinary but well-attested fact, however, that 

 some species of larva become so entirely frozen, as to 

 appear literal masses of ice, which will yet afterwards 

 revive. In proof of this, Lister asserts t that he has 

 found caterpillars which have actually chinked like 



* Int. to Ent. vol. ii. p. 442. 

 f Lister, Goedart. de Insectas, p. 76. 

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