VII, 



NATURE IN WINTER-QUARTERS. 



WHILE we are upon the subject of winter studies, some account of 

 how the animal world meets the cold weather will be appropriate. 



It will be land animals chiefly that will interest us, since, in the sea, 

 winter or summer makes small difference a few feet below the surface, 

 and the creatures living there are not much affected by the changing of 

 the seasons. The same thing seems to be true, to a great extent, of the 

 fresh-water sponges and the infusoria that crowd our ponds and ditches. 

 These microscopic beings, standing on the borderland between plants and 

 animals, have wonderful hardihood, reviving after becoming as dry as 

 sand in a hot oven, and proving equally defiant of snow and ice. You 

 may collect them as abundantly in February as in May. Their com- 

 panions, the minute, transparent entomostracans — lowly relatives of the 

 crabs — stand the cold equally well, though some species never live longer 

 than from their birth in spring until after they have laid their eggs in 

 the fall. 



As for the worms — I mean the true worms — they survive the winter 

 buried snugly in the mud ; while the water-spiders, that come next to 

 them in the scale, keep comfortable by sleeping in a little globule of air, 

 and clinging to a weed-stalk or a sunken stone. This globule of air they 

 are able to carry down beneath the water with them, because their bodies 

 are clothed with long hairs. To all this small water -life, indeed, the 

 winter puts little or no check. When you rise to a somewhat more 

 highly organized and more sensitive class of creatures, the insects — most 

 of which live out of the water, at least afte"r they are fully grown — you 

 find that winter is dreaded and guarded against. 



The best that many insects can do, to be sure, is to die at the approach 

 of cold weather ; but in this case eggs have been laid where it is hoped 

 they may be safe, or else the young in some stage, ceasing to grow, have 

 retired to sleep away the long, dull days until the April sun shall wake 

 them up. The bark of all the trees in the forest and orchard harbor 



