SEASONAL ABUNDANCE OF INSECTS 219 



wasp have here and there lain moribund under clods 

 of earth. From caves and hollow trees the few 

 surviving flies of the huge summer legion creep into 

 the outer air. Ensconced between bark and trunk, 

 among bud scales and in the ground itself, are the 

 imperishable eggs of green-fly and scale-insect, which 

 no frost can kill and no mould injure. These hatch 

 at the coming of spring and provide a new generation 

 of aphides and coccidae which fatten on the opening 

 buds, and from imperceptible beginnings increase 

 their coming with an acceleration that is ultimately to 

 raise the rate of increase to one that the vibration of 

 light alone can parallel. In the water there are few 

 signs of summer's abundance. As on land, a last 

 stand has been made by a few water-beetles, with 

 perhaps may-fly, dragon-fly, or caddis-fly larva? here 

 and there ; but the seed that is to flower out into 

 wriggling plenty is at present an inert, encased egg 

 left by dragon-fly, alder-fly, or stone-fly in the un- 

 stirring mud or on the water weeds. 



With the onset of warmth these scattered centres 

 of suspended animation resume or commence their 

 activity. The hive-bees that have clung together 

 for warmth make their cleansing flight ; the solitary 

 burrowers drill, with teeth and claws, holes in the sandy 

 bank ; wasps select their sites and begin to work up 

 wood-chippings for the nest ; ants creep from the 

 deeper earth to the surface and under cover reconstruct 

 their city ; beetles scavenge the roads and meadows, 

 rifle the early blossoms and leaf buds, or scour the 



