THE WINTER REST. 105 



dying down in the last days of autumn, and being 

 represented until the next spring, not by living 

 members, but by eggs alone. There is something 

 very singular, and we might almost Stiy marvel- 

 lous, in this idea of a whole race lying dormant, 

 so to speak, in the egg condition for months to- 

 gether, while not a single representative of the 

 race survives personally to carry on its conscious 

 life and traditions through the intervening period. 

 In the spring the new generation is hatched out 

 from the egg^ without ever having seen a solitary 

 individual of the earlier broods; so that each 

 year's crop lives in entire ignorance of its prede- 

 cessors and successors, having come, as if by mir- 

 acle, it knows not whence, and leaving its eggs 

 carefully hidden after it, it knows not why or 

 wherefore. In many insects, however, a few in- 

 dividuals manage to drag on their lives by hil)cr- 

 nation from one season to another, and thus keep 

 up uninterrupted the succession of the race. This 

 is the case with lady-birds, some of which always 

 live through the winter ; as also with wasps, each 

 nest of which is produced hy a single female who / 

 lias passed the colder months in a state of torpor, 

 concealed in moss or some other secure retreat. 

 Humble-bees similarly derive their origin from a 

 hibernating female, known as the foundress, who 

 lias in like manner slept through the winter in a 

 hollow tree. With certain other insects it is the 



