In warm spots under hedges, I see, the first spring insects now begin to appear, timidly and tentatively, from the shelter of their cocoons. Some few of them, indeed, like the lady-birds, the wasps, and the bumble-bees, have struggled through the winter in the winged or perfect form, having hibernated among warm moss or under the bark of trees in favoured situations. These adventurous kinds passed through their larval and pupal stages last year, and a tithe of them live on with difficulty through the winter frosts, to become the mothers and founders of fresh insect communities as April comes round again. But by far the greater number eat and grow as grubs or caterpillars through the summer months, and when autumn approaches turn into cocoons or chrysalides, to lie by for the winter in a snug retreat, well wrapped up in a warm silky or woollen coverlet, and protected underground from snow or hoarfrost. As soon as cold weather approaches, these prudent insects retire from public life, cease from active pursuits, melt themselves up into a sort of organic pulp, lose almost every distinguishable organ or feature, and remain dormant, in a state of indefinite protoplasm, which gradually takes shape again as moth, beetle, or butterfly. Mummies we sometimes call them, but they are not even mummies, for they lose almost entirely their form and limbs; they tide over the winter for the most part in an all but structureless mass, which yet encloses the potentiality of rebuilding in due course the shape and members of the ancestral insect. Slowly new limbs grow out within the protecting chrysalis case, wings bud from the side, and the grub or caterpillar changes by degrees into the totally unlike image of the beetle or butterfly. As soon as warmer weather sets in, the winged forms emerge with the first sunny day from their broken shell. I have seen nettle-butterflies abroad in a spell of genial warmth in the last week of January; a brimstone has been tempted forth to seek his lady-love on St. Valentine’s Day; and fritillaries are abundant in early March sunshine. Lesser insects, whose names are enshrined in scientific Latin alone, often emerge from their mummy-cases even earlier than these familiar and conspicuous lepidoptera.

The moment they peep forth, lo and behold! they find the plant world, for its part, ready decked to greet them. The very same morning that sees the first butterfly and the first bee on the wing, sees also the first crocus opening wide its shining cup in the full sun to woo them. The brimstone is no sooner out than the coltsfoot and the celandine and the bulbous buttercup spread their gold to allure him. And has it ever struck you that the plants, no less than the animals, pass through the winter period in the chrysalis condition? This is no mere figurative flower of speech; it is the scientific statement of a real and profound analogy. During the summer months ............