THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



5 



be derived from the study of Entomology, but to depict the varying aspects 

 presented by the insect world month by months throughout the year. With 

 these few words, then, by way of introduction, we will proceed to speak of 

 Entomological Work to be done by the student of insect life in 



JANUAKY. 



It seems strange, no doubt, to the uninitiated that it should be possible to 

 do anything at all in Entomology in the Winter time. The popular idea is 

 that, with perhaps the exception of a few gnats, the entire insect race is, for 

 the time being, extinct, but the Entomologist knows tbat such is not the 

 case, for even Lepidoptera — an order we more than any other associate with 

 the warmer months — occur, and that even when the dreary Winter seems to 

 have chilled the life out of all tender things. — 



When trees are bare and sapless boughs 



Moan in the icy gale as if they sung 

 A requiem o'er the tree whose life has gone 

 Down into earth from whence it sprung. 



and when one could never expect to see any of the order to which butterflies 

 and moths belong — 



Yet by the hedge's side at twilight hour, 



Moths flutter along heedless of the cold 

 And sport about as if frost had no power 

 To chill their tender life and to enfold 

 Them in death's grim embrace. 



In what manner the moths of the genus Eybernia are organised so as to 

 resist the effects of cold is a problem. Were their bodies clothed with thick 

 down like the Drinker and Oak Eggar Moths it would be somewhat less 

 marvellous, but it is not so : on the contrary they are very thinly covered. 

 How then with their bodies thus constituted do they manage not only to 

 survive the cold, but even to flit about the side of the leafless hedges in 

 January, apparently as joyously as kindred species do in July ? 



I am unable to give a satisfactory answer to the question, although I have 

 thought much on the subject. All I can say is that vital force is truly a 

 wonderful thing, and the ways in which it manifests itself are numberless and 

 as varied as creation itself. Although I should much like to enlarge further 

 on the subject, I cannot do so now, but must leave it — at any rate for the 

 present. 



By way of shewing what the insect world is like in January, I will briefly 

 describe an entomological excursion I made last winter, and I shall in all 

 probability illustrate the other months of the year in a similar way, viz. by 

 descriptions of other " days out." I have had entomologising in various 

 localities, chiefly in the eastern, southern, and midland counties of England. 



