280 
MR. NEWPORT ON THE TEMPERATURE OF INSECTS. 
From this Table it is seen that in the autumn, while the larva of the Anthophora 
continues active in its cell, its temperature is higher than that of either nymph or 
perfect insect, while the nymph, which has in reality a lower temperature than either 
the larva or perfect insect, being at that time in a state of activity, or degree of ex- 
citement inferior to that of the larva, and superior to that of the perfect insect, has a 
temperature in its cell intermediate between that of these two conditions. It was 
evident to me while making these observations that these apparently contradictory 
facts arose only from the circumstance of the perfect insect being then in a state of 
far more complete hybernation than the nymph, which, as well as the larva, was less 
able to maintain its temperature when raised to a certain amount than the perfect 
insect. But when the season of hybernation is over, and the swarthy female bee is 
roving abroad in the sunshine of the months of May and June, she has a temperature, 
as shown at Nos. 18, 24, 35, 37, and 38, very far above her temperature in the states 
of larva and nymph, or than what is possessed by her only a short time before she 
quits her cell in the months of March and April, when her temperature is scarcely 
higher than that of the larva, as shown in Nos. 15, 16, and 17- But if the perfect 
bee be taken from her cell either at the end of March or at the commencement of 
her hybernation in September, her temperature of body after a few inspirations will 
be raised to two or three degrees above that of the atmosphere, but if undisturbed 
the insect always endeavours to sink again into a state of repose, and the temperature 
of her body becomes that of the surrounding medium. The soil in which the hyber- 
nacula of these insects are formed being of sand or clay, which are bad conductors of 
heat, always continues of a more uniform temperature than the open atmosphere, and 
is less subject to variations through the alternating and often suddenly changed tem- 
peratures of day and night, so that the insects are neither exposed on the one hand to 
the chilling hoar frosts of midnight, nor to the scorching sun of noon, which even in 
April, as shown on the Table, Nos. 16 and 17, may raise the thermometer to 8]°Fahil 
on the surface of the bank, while the insects in their nidi at only 1^ inch or 2 inches 
deep are preserved in an almost uniform temperature of 56° Fahr. ; and when the 
perfect insects have left their dwellings and are again filling the bank with cells and 
storing them with ova and with honey-paste for the support of the future young, the 
temperature of the same cells may be raised to 80° or upwards, a temperature which 
perhaps is then necessary for hatching the ova, and rearing the larvae in their earliest 
condition. 
5. Inordinate Excitement. 
The great rapidity with which, as we have just seen, the temperature of an insect 
is raised from being almost on a level with that of the surrounding medium to several 
degrees above it, would naturally lead us to conclude that a much larger amount of 
heat is in reality generated than what is indicated by the thermometer, and that since 
the heat evolved within the body of the insect becomes perceptible through means of 
