REAUMUR 259 



winter in the chrysalis form and only die as a spent 

 moth in the following June ; whereas a second cater- 

 pillar, born in May, may reach the end of its life-history 

 in two or two and a half months. In the same way 

 winter-sown wheat and spring-sown wheat ripen at 

 the same time after growth-periods of very different 

 lengths. E^aumur found that pupae kept in hothouses 

 in the depth of winter yielded moths long before other 

 pupse which were kept in a cool place. He also tried 

 the singular experiment of enclosing some pupae in 

 an egg-shaped glass flask, and giving them to a hen to 

 be sat with her own eggs. The time of year was June 

 and July, and the pupse set under the hen hatched out 

 in four days, while pupse of the same species kept in 

 the open air required fourteen. Then he tried to retard 

 development by keeping the pupse in a cellar. They 

 were kept alive without undergoing change twelve 

 months beyond the usual time, and might probably have 

 been retarded even longer by a lower temperature. 

 Eeaumur goes on to quote examples of the suspended 

 animation of hibernating quadrupeds ; of eggs of the 

 silk-worm, which in a cool place remained long un- 

 changed, but hatched out very rapidly when kept at the 

 temperature of the human body ; and of seeds which 

 germinated after lying dormant for twenty years. He 

 speaks, with a contempt which has since proved to 

 be unjust, of the magazines of grain supposed to be laid 

 up against winter by the industrious ant. Instead of 

 enjoying the fruits of their labours in the dead season, 

 the ants, he says, are then crowded together, and unable 

 even to move. This is perfectly true of the ants of 

 France and England, but the agricultural ants of 

 warmer countries have been shown in modern days 

 to be no fable. 



