But _are_ they all dead and gone, those happy winged things that danced up
and down in shady nooks, or so lately shone like jewels in the sunshine?
Where are the topaz-coloured butterflies that glanced from flower to
flower, the emerald tiger-beetles, the ladybirds, and the grasshoppers?
Some of them are indeed dead; their little life, bounded by a few summer
days, was soon lived out; they have laid their eggs, making careful
provision for the protection and food of the young ones which they will
never see--for the eggs of insects will bear the cold which so soon proves
fatal to their mothers--and their little hour of work in this busy world
is finished; but many more are only very fast asleep. Like the dwarfish
Esquimaux, when _their_ long dark winter comes, and they draw their mossy
blankets over them, they are taking their winter rest, and lie hidden
safely in depths of soft moss, or beneath the bark of some ivy-grown tree,
or deep in the lap of Mother Earth herself.
And with many of them, before they wake to life again, such changes will
have taken place that they will come forth from their hiding-places like
new creatures, fitted to enjoy a new mode of living. It is not difficult to
see that this winter-sleep, or torpor, is no wasted time, but a means by
which God has ensured the lives of hosts of His creatures which, having no
extra clothing to protect them from the frost, and no power of migrating to
a land of sunshine and plenty, would otherwise be liable to perish during
the long season of cold and dearth.
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