In any Northern State as many as four hundred different kinds of the six-footed or true insects, in the winged or adult stage, may be taken in winter by any one who is so disposed, and knows where to search for them.  Among the Orthoptera, the “grouse grasshoppers” live during the cold season beneath the loose bark of logs, or beneath the bottom rails of the old Virginia worm fences.  From these retreats every warm, sunny day tempts them forth in numbers.  On such occasions the earth seems to swarm with them, as they leap before the intruder, their hard bodies striking the dead leaves with a sound similar to that produced by falling hail.  The common field cricket belongs also to the Orthoptera, and the young of various sizes winter under rails and logs, bidding defiance to Jack Frost from within a little burrow or pit beneath the protecting shelter.

[Illustration:  CHINCH BUG.]

The true bugs, or Hemiptera, hibernate in similar places; squash bugs, chinch bugs, “stink” bugs, and others being easily found in numbers beneath loose bark or hidden between the root leaves of mullein and other plants.

Nearly three hundred species of Coleoptera, or beetles, occupy similar positions.  Almost any rotten log or stump when broken open discloses a half dozen or more “horn” or “bess beetles,” Passalus cornutus L., great, shining, clumsy, black fellows with a curved horn on the head.  They are often utilized as horses by country children, the horn furnishing an inviting projection to which may be fastened, by a thread or cord, chips and pieces of bark to be dragged about by the strong and never lagging beast of burden.  When tired of “playing horse” they can make of the insect an instrument of music; for, when held by the body, it emits a creaking, hissing noise, produced by rubbing the abdomen up and down against the inside of the hard, horny wing covers.  This beetle passes its entire life in cavities in the rotten wood on which it feeds, and when it wishes a larger or more commodious home it has only to eat the more.

[Illustration:  THIRTEEN-SPOTTED LADY BEETLE.]

The handsome and beneficial lady beetles winter beneath fallen leaves or between and beneath the root leaves of the mullein and the thistle.  Our most common species, the thirteen-spotted lady beetle, Megilla maculata De G., is gregarious, collecting together by thousands on the approach of cold weather, and lying huddled up like sheep until a breath of spring gives them the signal to disperse.  Snout beetles galore can be found beneath piles of weeds near streams and the borders of ponds or beneath chunks and logs in sandy places.  All are injurious, and the farmer by burning their hibernating places in winter can cause their destruction in numbers.  Rove beetles, ground beetles, and many others live deep down in the vegetable mould beneath old logs, where they are, no doubt, as secure from the ice king as if they followed the swallow to the tropics.