HOW PLANTS AND ANIMALS SPEND 

 THE WINTER.* 



One of the greatest problems which each of the liv- 

 ing forms about us has had to solve, during the years 

 of its existence on earth, is how best to perpetuate its 

 kind during that cold season which once each year, in 

 our temperate zone, is bound to come. Many are the 

 solutions to this problem. Each form of life has, as 

 it were, solved it best to suit its own peculiar case, and 

 to the earnest student of Nature there is nothing more 

 interesting than to pry into these solutions and note 

 how varied, strange, and wonderful they are. 



To fully appreciate some of the facts mentioned 

 below it must be borne in mind that there is no such 

 thing as "spontaneous generation" of life. Every 

 cell is the offspring of a pre-existing cell. Nothing 

 but a living thing can produce a living thing. Hence 

 every weed that next season will spring up and pro- 

 voke the farmer's ire, and every insect which will 

 then make life almost intolerable for man or beast, 

 exists throughout the winter in some form. 



If we begin with some of the lowly plants, such as 

 the fresh-water algre, or so-called "frog-spittle" of the 

 ponds, and many of the rusts and fungi which are so 

 injurious to crops, we find that they form in autumn 

 "resting spores." These are very small and globular, 



''Popular Science Monthly, February, 1897. 

 (313) 



