[Illustration:  CHRYSALIS OF TOMATO WORM.]

Each of the winter forms of insects above mentioned can withstand long and severe cold weather—­in fact, may be frozen solid for weeks and retain life and vigor, both of which are shown when warm weather and food appear again.  Indeed, it is not an unusually cold winter, but one of successive thawings and freezings, which is most destructive to insect life.  A mild winter encourages the growth of mould which attacks the hibernating larvae and pupae as soon as, from excess of rain or humidity, they become sickly; and it also permits the continued activity of insectivorous mammals and birds.  Thus, moles, shrews, and field mice, instead of burying themselves deeply in the ground, run about freely during an open winter and destroy enormous numbers of pupae; while such birds as the woodpeckers, titmice, and chickadees are constantly on the alert, and searching in every crevice and cranny of fence and bark of tree for the hibernating larvae.

Of the creeping, wingless creatures, which can ever be found beneath rocks, rails, chunks, and especially beneath those old decaying logs which are half buried in the rich vegetable mould, the myriapods, or “thousand-legs,” deserve more than a passing notice.  They are typical examples of that great branch of the animal kingdom known as arthropods, which comprises all insects and crustaceans.  Each arthropod has the body composed of rings placed end to end and bearing jointed appendages, and in the myriapods each ring and its appendages can be plainly seen; whereas in the higher forms of the branch many of the rings are so combined as to be very difficult to distinguish.

Full forty kinds of myriapods occur in any area comprising one hundred square miles in the eastern United States.  About twenty-five of them go by the general name of “thousand-legs” or millipedes, as each has from forty to fifty-five cylindrical rings in the body, and two pairs of legs to each ring.  The other fifteen belong to the “centipede” group, the body consisting of about sixteen flattened segments, or rings, each bearing a single pair of legs.  When disturbed, the “thousand-legs” generally coils up and remains motionless, shamming death, or “playing possum,” as it is popularly put, as a means of defence; while the centipede scampers hurriedly away and endeavors to hide beneath leaf, chip, or other object.

[Illustration:  CENTIPEDE.]

All those found in the Northern States are perfectly harmless, the true centipede, whose bite is reputed much more venomous than it really is, being found only in the South.  True, some of the centipede group can pinch rather sharply with their beetle-like jaws; and one, our largest and most common species, a brownish red fellow about three inches long and without eyes, can even draw blood if its jaws happen to strike a tender place.  When handled it always tries to bite, perhaps out of revenge for the abominably