214 ANTS NOT INJURED BY COLD. 
them, exposed to view multitudes of the yellow species 
(formica flava) in their winter’s retirement. They were 
collected in numbers in little cells and compartments, 
communicating with others by means of narrow pas- 
sages. In many of the cells they had deposited their 
larvae, which they were surrounding and attending, but 
not brooding over or covering. Being disturbed by our 
rude operations, they removed them from our sight to 
more hidden compartments. The larvae were small. 
Some of these ant-hills contained multitudes of the 
young of the woodlouse (oniscus armadillo), inhabiting 
with perfect familiarity the same compartments as the 
ants, crawling about with great activity with them, and 
perfectly domesticated with each other. They were 
small and white ; but the constant vibration of their 
antennae, and the alacrity of their motions, manifested 
a healthy vigor. The ants were in a somewhat torpid 
state; but on being removed into a temperate room, 
they assumed much of their summer animation. How 
these creatures are supported during the winter season 
it is difficult to comprehend, as in no one instance could 
we perceive any store or provision made for the supply 
of their wants. The minute size of the larvae manifested 
that they had been recently deposited ; and consequently 
that their parents had not remained during winter in a 
dormant state, and thus free from the calls of hunger. 
The preceding month of February, and part of January, 
had been remarkably severe ; the frost had penetrated 
deep into the earth, and long held it frozen ; the ants 
were in many cases not more than four inches beneath 
the surface, and must have been inclosed in a mass of 
frozen soil for a long period ; yet they, their young, and 
the onisci, were perfectly uninjured by it ; affording an- 
other proof of the fallacy of the commonly received 
opinion, that cold is universally destructive to insect 
life. Some creatures may be injured or destroyed by 
frost, but the larger portion of them nature has provided 
with constitutions to which it is innocuous, or furnished 
w T ith instinct to prevent its harming them. These 
emmets had probably received no substance, or required 
any, from the time of their retirement in the autumn, a 
