TPx^ romance of natural history. 



Philodina, roseola, which animal he found in 

 abundance, with the globules, in the glacier of the 

 Aar.* Other minute animals were also found in 

 the snow. 



In Canada I have found, in the depth of winter, 

 living and active insects on the surface of the 

 snow, which are seen nowhere else, and at no 

 other season. Little hopping atoms, of singular 

 structure, adapted to a mode of progression pecu- 

 liarly their own, dance about on the unsullied 

 bosom of the new-fallen snow. They belong to 

 the genus Pod urn, and are distinguished by hav- 

 ing at the extremity of their body two long, stiff 

 bristles, ordinarily bent up under the belly, but 

 which, at the pleasure of the insect, fly out 

 straight with great force, and thus jerk it into the 

 air, on the principle of a child's toy-frog. Other 

 curious species, — two in particular, both belonging 

 to winged families, yet both without wings, the 

 one a sort of wingless gnat,f the other something 

 like a flea, but really one of the Panorpad&,\ — I 

 have found numerous in similar circumstances, 

 and in no other. 



As a curious incident, not altogether out of 

 place in this connection, though the parallelism of 

 the cases is more apparent than real, we may 

 notice the trees which Mr. Atkinson found grow- 

 ing, under very unusual circumstances, in the 

 valley of the Black Irkout, in Eastern Siberia, 

 a romantic gorge, whose precipitous sides are 

 formed of different marbles — one white, with deep 

 purple spots and small veins, another a rich yel- 

 low kind, equal, if not superior, to the best Sienna, 

 but wholly untouched by man. "We reached," he 

 says, "a part of the ravine filled with snow and 



* Rep. Br. Assoc., 1840. + Chionea araneoides. 



%Boreu8 Uyemalis. 



70 



