446 HYBERNATION OF INSECTS. 
cows the Aphides, which, by an admirable provision, 
become lethargic at precisely the same degree of cold as 
the ants, and awake at the same period with them?. 
Lastly, there are some few imsects which do not 
seem ever to be torpid, as Podura nivalis, L., and the 
singular apterous insect recently described by Dalman, 
Chionea araneoides, both of which run with agility on 
the snow itself; and the common hive-bee; though with 
regard to the precise state in which this last passes the 
winter, this part of its economy has not been made the 
subject of such accurate investigation as is desirable. 
Many authors have conceived that it is the most na- 
tural state of bees in winter to be perfectly torpid at a 
certain degree of cold, and that their partial reviviscency, 
and consequent need of food in our climate, are owing 
to its variableness and often comparative mildness in 
winter; whence they have advised placing bees during 
this season in an ice-house, or on the north side of a 
wall, where the degree of cold being more uniform, and 
thus their torpidity undisturbed, they imagine no food 
would be required. So far, however, do these supposi- 
tions and conclusions seem from being warranted, that 
Huber expressly affirms that, instead of being torpid in 
@ Recherches, 202.—In digging in my garden on the 26th of Janu- 
ary 1817, I turned up in three or four places colonies of Myrmica 
rubra, Latr. in their winter retreats, each of which comprised ap- 
parently one or two hundred ants, with several larve as big as a 
grain of mustard, closely clustered together, occupying a cavity the 
size of a hen’s egg, in tenacious clay, at the depth of six inches 
from the surface. They were very lively; but though Fahrenheit’s 
thermometer stood at 47° in the shade, I did not then, nor at any 
other time during the very mild winter, see a single ant out of its 
hybernaculum. 
> Kongl. Vet. Acad. Handling. 1816 104. 
