The Zoologist — Jolt, 1866. 275 



change in all the phases of insect life, brought about by the difference 

 of external, especially climatical agencies. Species which elsewhere 

 pass through their whole metamorphoses in one season, adapt them- 

 selves here to a series of such, more so in the subnival and nival 

 regions, as if to prevent any wholesale waste of life, so often suddenly 

 imperilled by changes in the weather. An Almighty hand has wisely 

 provided that eggs, larvae or pupaj will stand the severity of not only 

 one but often several winters, before progressing to the next stage; 

 but should an unusually fine and mild summer come on, a iew weeks 

 will further them more than entire seasons; imagos will come forth 

 and enjoy the congenial sunshine, where, for years past, no sign of 

 such could be detected ; the yellowish grass plots on the upper moun- 

 tain-ridges, now converted into green lawns, are, as it were, teeming 

 with life, until a cold blast, or the lateness of the season restores to 

 them the dreary dead look they bore for years before. 



Nay, in this land of wonders even death seems to come sometimes 

 in a peculiar form : all of us have read how the sharp, excessive 

 cold of the snow region tempts man to give way to the sleep from 

 which there is no awakening, and if we are to believe the testimony of 

 those people whose lives have been saved, for instance, by the humane 

 monks of the Great St. Bernard, there is something indescribably 

 sweet in being thus lulled into eternal repose. The privilege of easy 

 dying in the regions of eternal snow does,. however, not seem to be 

 restricted to man alone ; at least some remarks further on seem to 

 imply that insects, too, are in certain cases exempt from the terrors 

 usually accompanying death ; but, to state the case plainly, I must 

 beg of the reader to reconsider the following facts : — 



" At the meeting of the Entomological Society of London, held on 

 the 3rd of April, 1865, the President, Mr. F. P. Pascoe, read the 

 following note : — ' Last July, when passing over the snow-fields on the 

 top of Monte Moro, at an elevation of about 8000 feet, I noticed here 

 and there a sharply-defined cylindrical hole in the snow, such as 

 might have been caused by pressing a wine-cork into it. These holes 

 were generally about an inch in depth, and at the bottom of each was 

 either a small lump that looked like peat, or more frequently an insect, 

 invariably either Dipterous or Ichneumonideous. I cannot account 

 for the lumps of peat, but I imagine that the insects settling on the 

 snow became torpid from its low temperature, and sank gradually (or 

 perhaps rapidly) into it, the hole being caused by the radiation of heat . 

 from the insect. The solar rays on mountain summits are asserted to 



