/ 'itlgar Errors respect/tig Insects. 



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(11° below of Fahrenheit); and Lister, the truth of 

 whose assertion has been fully confirmed by experiments 

 made on the Grub (larva of Tipula Oleracea), by my friend 

 Mr. Stickney, author of a valuable essay on that pest of 

 Holderness, as well as by similar experiments instituted by 

 Bonnet * on the chrysalis of the cabbage Caterpillar (larva 

 of Papilio Brassicce), informs us, that some caterpillars and 

 hexapod larvae, after being so frozen as to chink like little 

 stones, when dropped into a glass, nevertheless revived.f 



But there still were wanting, to carry conviction to the mind 

 of the Horticulturist, proofs of the fact, that insects actually 

 do abound as much after severe as after mild winters. Such 

 proofs the present spring, at least as far as my observations 

 extend, has amply supplied. The cold in the winter was 

 greater, and of longer continuance, than has been known for 

 many years : the former part of the time the ground was 

 destitute of snow; and the final thaw was interrupted by 

 frequent and intense frosts : so that every condition for the 

 most effective operation of the destructive powers of cold was 

 fulfilled. Yet, in my own garden, almost the first things that 

 struck me, after the frost had left us, were hundreds of young 

 caterpillars of the gooseberry moth (Phahena Geometra Gros- 

 sulariata,), quite uninjured, that had hybernated under the 

 rims of some flower pots which stood in the middle of the 

 garden, exposed to every change of weather ; and I never 

 knew these insects so numerous or voracious as this spring. 

 They not only attacked the half expanded buds of Goose- 

 berries and Currants (black as well as red and white), thus 

 destroying the blossom, but even the buds and young leaves 



* Oeuvres, torn, vl p, 12. t Goedartius do Insectis, p. 7& 



