Secondly, the Geotrupes’ eggs are capable of enduring the trials of severe cold unscathed. I do not know the exact temperature inside the frozen block which I tried to tackle with a mason’s chisel. Outside, the thermometer sometimes fell to ten degrees below freezing-point; and, as the cold period lasted a long time, we may believe that the layer of earth in my boxes was equally cold. Now the Geotrupes’ puddings were enclosed in that frozen mass turned to a block of stone. A generous allowance must no doubt be made for the non-conductivity of these puddings composed of thready materials; the wall of dung did, to a certain extent, protect the larva and the egg against the biting cold, which, if experienced direct, would have been fatal. No matter: in that atmosphere the dung-cylinders, damp at the start, must in the long run have acquired the hardness of stone. In their hatching-chamber, in the tunnel made by the larva, the temperature undoubtedly sank below freezing-point. Then what became of the grub and the egg? Were they really frozen? Everything seems to tell us so. That this most delicate of all delicate things, a germ, a rudiment of life in a blob of glair, should harden, turn into a bit of stone and then resume its vitality and continue its evolution after thawing seems inadmissible. And yet circumstances confirm it. We should have to credit the Geotrupes’ sausages with athermanous properties unequalled by any other substance to regard them as a sufficient protection against such intense and lasting refrigeration. What a pity that we could derive no information from the thermometer in this instance! After all, if complete freezing is unproven, one point has been established for certain: the egg and the grub of the Geotrupes can support and survive very low temperatures in their protecting sheath. Since the occasion presents itself, let me say a few more words on the insect’s powers of resisting cold. Some years ago, while looking for Scolia-cocoons in a heap of mould, I had made a large collection of the grubs of Cetonia aurata. [54] I placed my loot in a flower-pot with a few handfuls of decayed vegetable matter, just enough to cover the insects’ backs. I intended to draw upon them for certain enquiries which I was making at the time. The pot remained in the open air; and I forgot all about it. A cold snap came, accompanied by sharp frost and snow. Then I remembered my Cetoniæ, so ill-protected against this kind of weather. I found the contents of the pot hardened into a conglomeration of earth, dead leaves, ice, snow and shrivelled grubs. It was a sort of almond-rock, in which the larvæ stood for the almonds. Sorely tried by the cold as they were, the colony ought to have perished. But no: when the thaw arrived, the frozen larvæ came to life again and began to swarm about as though nothing unusual had happened.