HYBERNATION OF INSECTS. 445 
winter, the great bulk of hybernating insects, as if con- 
scious of the deceptious nature of their pleasurable feel- 
ings, and that no food could then be procured, never quit 
their quarters, but quietly wait for a renewal of their in- 
sensibility by a fresh accession of cold. 
On this head I have had an opportunity of making 
some observations which, in the paucity of recorded 
facts on the hybernation of insects, you may not be sorry 
‘to have laid before you. The second of December 1816 
was even finer than many of the preceding days of the 
season, which so happily falsified the predictions that 
the unprecedented dismal summer would be followed by 
a severe winter. ‘The thermometer was 46° in the 
shade; not a breath of air was stirring; and a bright 
sun imparted animation to troops of the winter gnat 
(Trichocera hiemalis, Meig.), which frisked under every 
bush; to numerous Psychode ; and even to the flesh- 
fly, of which two or three individuals buzzed past me 
while digging in my garden. Yet though these insects, 
which I shall shortly advert to as exceptions to the ge- 
neral rule, were thus active, the heat was not sufficient 
to induce their hybernating brethren to quit their re- 
treats. Removing some of the dead bark of an old 
apple-tree, I soon discovered several insects in their 
winter-quarters. Of the little beetle Lebia quadrinotata, 
Duftschmid Faun. Austr. (Carabus punctomaculatus, Ent. 
Brit.), I found six or eight individuals, and all so lively, 
that though remaining perfectly quiet in their abode un- 
til disturbed, they ran about with their ordinary activity 
as soon as the covering of bark was displaced. ‘The 
same was the case with a colony of earwigs. ‘Two or 
three individuals of Lebia guadrimaculata showed more 
