Of the Diptera, or flies, but few forms winter in the perfect state, yet the myriads of house flies and their kin, which next summer will distract the busy house-wife, are represented in winter by a few isolated individuals which creep forth occasionally from crevice or cranny and greet us with a friendly buzz.

In mid-winter one may also see in the air swarms of small, gnat-like insects.  They belong to this order and live beneath the bark of freshly fallen beech and other logs.  On warm, sunny days they go forth in numbers for a sort of rhythmical courtship; their movements while in the air being peculiar in that they usually rise and fall in the same vertical line—­performing a curious aerial dance which is long continued.

Among the dozen or more butterflies and moths which winter in the perfect state, the most common and the most handsome is the “Camberwell beauty” or “mourning cloak,” Vanessa antiopa L., a large butterfly whose wings are a rich purplish brown above, duller beneath, and broadly margined with a yellowish band.  It is often found in winter beneath chunks which are raised a short distance above the ground, or in the crevices of old snags and fence rails.  It is then apparently lifeless, with the antennae resting close along the back, above which the wings are folded.  But one or two warm days are necessary to restore it to activity, and I have seen it on the wing as early as the 2d of March, hovering over the open flowers of the little snow trillium.

All the species of ants survive the winter as mature forms, either in their nests in the ground or huddled groups in half rotten logs and stumps; while here and there beneath logs a solitary queen bumble-bee, bald hornet, or yellow jacket is found—­the sole representatives of their races.

Thus insects survive the winter in many ways and in many places, some as eggs, others as larvae, still others as pupae, and a large number as adults—­all being able to withstand severe cold and yet retain vitality sufficient to recover, live, grow, and replenish the earth with their progeny when the halcyon days of spring appear once more.

In the scale of animal life the vertebrates or back-boned animals succeed the insects.  Beginning with the fishes, we find that in late autumn they mostly seek some deep pool in pond or stream at the bottom of which the water does not freeze.  Here the herbivorous forms eke out a precarious existence by feeding upon the innumerable diatoms and other small plants which are always to be found in water, while the carnivorous prey upon the herbivorous, and so maintain the struggle for existence.  The moving to these deeper channels and pools in autumn and the scattering in the spring of the assembly which has gathered there constitute the so-called “migration of fishes,” which is far from being so extensive and methodical as that practiced by the migratory birds.