VITALITY OF EGGS. — POWER, OF FLIGHT. 391 



in the form of a half cylinder, loosely covering the orifice 

 after the operation was completed. 



In the spring of 1858 the young brood were seen at 

 Prairie Portage, hopping over the newly-fallen snow at 

 the latter end of April. It was thought by the settlers 

 that the cold weather which followed the warm days in 

 the early part of the month when the eggs were hatched, 

 would have destroyed the young brood, but it did not 

 appear to have created any sensible diminution in their 

 numbers. 



The extraordinary vitality of the eggs of insects is 

 well-known, but when we reflect that the eggs of the 

 red-legged locust are exposed in Eupert's Land to a 

 temperature lower than that at which mercury freezes or 

 more than 40° below zero, as well as to constant alterna- 

 tions of temperature from the freezing point to below 

 zero in the early spring months, their capacity to resist 

 these influences cannot fail to be regarded as one of the 

 most wonderful features in the life of this insect. 



Their power of sustaining long flights is also very 

 remarkable. As stated in the narrative they generally 

 rose from the prairie about nine in the morning and 

 alighted about four in the afternoon. During the in- 

 termediate hours I do not recollect one instance in 

 which they were observed to alight, except in antici- 

 pation of a thunder-storm, when they would descend 

 perpendicularly from a great altitude. Assuming their 

 speed to have been twenty miles an hour, the dis- 

 tance they would fly in one day probably amounted to 

 one hundred and twenty miles. They have been seen 

 hurrying swiftly to the north at an elevation of 14,500 

 to 15,000 feet above the sea *, thus manifesting extra- 



* Lieutenant Warren. 



