FAVOURABLENESS OF WATEK. 815 



and the onisci, were perfectly uninjured by it ; af- 

 fording another proof of the fallacy of the com- 

 monly received opinion, that cold is universally de- 

 structive to insect life. Some creatures may be in- 

 jured or destroyed by frost ; but the larger portion 

 of them nature has provided with constitutions to 

 which it is innocuous, or furnished with instinct to 

 prevent its harming them. These emmets had pro- 

 bably received no sustenance, or required any, from 

 the time of their retirement in the autumn, a period 

 of full six months ; were inclosed during the space 

 of thirty days in a mass of frozen earth, and yet 

 remained perfectly uninjured by this long abstinence 

 and frost. 



Water, in a state of rest over decayed and putre- 

 scent vegetable matter, is peculiarly favourable for 

 the residence of many of the insect world. The 

 eggs that are lodged there remain undisturbed by 

 the agitation of the element, and the young pro- 

 duced from them, or deposited there by viviparous 

 creatures, remain in quiet, tolerably secure from ac- 

 cidental injuries ; but there are natural causes which 

 render these apparent asylums the fields of ravenous- 

 ness and of death. To these places resort many of 

 those voracious insects and other creatures, which 

 prey upon the smaller and helpless ; for all created 

 things seem subordinate to some more powerful 

 or irresistible agent, from the hardly visible atom 

 that floats in the pool, to man, who claims and 



