
: NOTES AND LITERATURE. 
ZOOLOGY. 

Temperature of Insects. — Professor Bachmetjew's! paper is one 
of those rare publications which is full of interest not only to the 
specialist in entomology but to biologists in general. The Russian 
author, with the equipment of the trained physicist, approaches a 
subject that has often been studied before, and after treating it in an 
exhaustive manner reaches new and important results, which would 
carry conviction in their very simplicity, even if they were not sub- 
stantiated step by step by detailed tables of observations. The work 
of all previous investigators in determining the vital temperature of 
insects is briefly and critically reviewed as a preface to each of the 
main sections of the work. 
In order to determine the temperatures, the insect was spitted 
through the thorax on a thermoelectric needle consisting of fused 
manganin and steel wires connected with a galvanometer. A detailed 
account of the somewhat complicated apparatus and the method of 
using it are given in an appendix (pp.:138-142). A number of 
different insects, mostly larger moths, butterflies, and beetles, both 
pupal and imaginal, were used in the experiments. 
The first part of the.work is devoted to a consideration of the body 
temperature of insects. In his earlier experiments, Bachmetjew came 
to the conclusion that the temperature of the insect body varies within 
very considerable limits, apparently without any serious consequences 
to the life of the animal. He found, moreover, that in resting insects 
the temperature is the same or very nearly the same as that of the 
surrounding air, Subsequent experiments, however, led him to con- 
clude that this is true only under ordinary conditions of moisture, 
temperature, etc., since these factors, when abnormal, have a very 
pronounced effect on the body temperature. Under normal condi- 
tions, when the temperature of the atmosphere is raised, the tempera- 
ture of the insect, though rising, lags at first more and more behind 
1 Bachmetjew, P. Temperaturverhiltnisse bei Insekten. Experimentelle ento- 
mologische Studien vom physikalisch-chemischen Standpunkt aus. Bd. i, pp. 4- 
160. Leipzig, Wilhelm Engelmann, 1901. 
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