NATURE WITH CLOSED DOORS 



the wood frog. I have seen the toad go into the 

 ground in the late fall. It is an interesting proceed- 

 ing. It literally elbows its way into the soil. It sits 

 on end, and works and presses with the sharp joints 

 of its folded legs until it has sunk itself at a suffi- 

 cient depth, which is only a few inches beneath the 

 surface. The water frogs appear to pass the winter 

 in the mud at the bottom of ponds and marshes. 

 The queen bumblebee and the queen hornet, I 

 think, seek out their winter quarters in holes in the 

 ground in September, while the drones and the 

 workers perish. The honey-bees do not hibernate: 

 they must have food all winter ; but our native wild 

 bees are dormant during the cold months, and sur- 

 vive the winter only in the person of the queen 

 mother. In the spring these queens set up house- 

 keeping alone, and found new families. 



Insects in all stages of their growth are creatures 

 of the warmth; the heat is the motive power that 

 makes them go; when this fails, they are still. The 

 katydids rasp away in the fall as long as there is 

 warmth enough to keep them going; as the heat 

 fails, they fail, till from the emphatic " Katy did it " 

 of August they dwindle to a hoarse, dying, " Kate, 

 Kate," in October. Think of the stillness that falls 

 upon the myriad wood-borers in the dry trees and 

 stumps in the forest as the chill of autumn comes on. 

 All summer have they worked incessantly in oak 

 and hickory and birch and chestnut and spruce, 

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