HOW ANIMALS SPEND THE WINTER

(FROM GLEANINGS FROM NATURE.)[2]

BY W. S. BLATCHLEY.

[2] "Popular Science Monthly," February, 1897. Copyright by William
Stanley Blatchley, 1899.


[Illustration: A COCOON.]

One of the greatest problems which each of the living forms about us
has had to solve, during the years of its existence on earth, is how
best to perpetuate its kind during that cold season which once each
year, in our temperate zone, is bound to come. Many are the solutions
to this problem. Each form of life has, as it were, solved it best to
suit its own peculiar case, and to the earnest student of Nature there
is nothing more interesting than to pry into these solutions and note
how varied, strange, and wonderful they are.

To fully appreciate some of the facts mentioned below it must be borne
in mind that there is no such thing as "spontaneous generation" of
life. Every cell is the offspring of a pre-existing cell. Nothing but
a living thing can produce a living thing. Hence every weed that next
season will spring up and provoke the farmer's ire, and every insect
which will then make life almost intolerable for man or beast, exists
throughout the winter in some form....