PLANTS AND ANIMALS IN WINTER. 829 



others as pupee, and a large number as adults all 

 being able to withstand severe cold and yet retain 

 vitality sufficient to recover, live, grow, and replenish 

 the earth with their progeny when the halcyon days 

 of spring appear once more. 



In the scale of animal life the vertebrates or back- 

 boned animals succeed the insects. Beginning with 

 the fishes, we find that in late autumn they mostly 

 seek some deep pool in pond or stream at the bottom 

 of which the water does not freeze. 



Fishes in jj ^ herbivorous forms eke out a 

 Winter. . . 



precarious existence by feeding upon 



the innumerable diatoms and other small plants which 

 are always to be found in water, while the carnivo- 

 rous prey upon the herbivorous, and so maintain the 

 struggle for existence. The moving to these deeper 

 channels and pools in autumn and the scattering in 

 the spring of the assembly which has gathered there 

 constitute the so-called "migration of fishes," which 

 is far from being so extensive and methodical as that 

 practiced by the migratory birds. 



Many of the smaller species of fishes, upon leaving 

 these winter resorts, ascend small, clear brooks in 

 large numbers for the purpose of depositing their 

 eggs ; as, when hatched in such a place, the young will 

 be comparatively free from the attacks of the larger 

 carnivorous forms. Among the lowest vertebrates 

 often found in numbers in early spring in these 

 meadow rills and brooks is the lamprey, Ammoccetes 

 branchialis (L.), or "lamper eel," as it is sometimes 

 called. It has a slender, eel-like body, of a uniform 

 leaden or blackish color, and with seven purse-shaped 



