ISTSECTS AND THEIE EEMEDIES. 103 



In whatever state an insect species is accustomed to 

 exist through the winter, or to hibernate (and it is done 

 in the case of a few in more than one condition), no de- 

 gree of cold likely to occur will affect them; therefore the 

 popular idea that a hard winter is destructive to insects 

 is a fallacy; except that such as are turned up by the plow 

 in very cold sunless weather may, in their benumbed 

 state, become an easier prey to insectivorous birds. 

 There is more truth in the reverse statement, that a mild 

 winter is destructive to insects. 



The influence of a certain degree of heat for a sufficient 

 time will hatch the worm as well as the chick, or bring 

 forth the butterfly from its chrysalis. If a worm is born 

 after a mild spell in winter, and finds no food in readi- 

 ness, it naturally must perish from starvation, and if a 

 butterfly appears, it must suffer from the same cause. 

 Either may perish from cold it was not expected to en- 

 counter. Even in case of survival, there would be no 

 breeding during the uncongenial weather. 



THE KAl'ID KEPBODUCTION OF INSECTS. 



The Creator in his wisdom has ordained that the 

 smaller animals and insects, which are most subject to 

 predatory enemies, shall be endowed with the greater 

 fecundity. The queen of the white-ant lays sixty eggs 

 in a minute, eighty thousand in twenty-four hours, and 

 forty million during its existence of two years in the 

 perfect state. Ants, birds, reptiles, beasts, ever near, 

 make food of them, when they come forth in countless 

 numbers at the commencement of the tropical rainy sea- 

 son; so that of many millions scarcely a single pair es- 

 capes to lay the foundation of a new colony. A single 

 plant-louse may, in five generations, become the ancestor 

 of seven hundred and twenty-nine million individuals; 

 and there may be twenty generations in a season. Dr. 

 Fitch ascertained, by actual experiment, that the fecun- 



