FLOODS AND ANIMAL LIFE.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Stn,—I venture to doubt whether, as stated in the article in your last issue, submersion of chrysalises by winter floods is injurious. I once tried complete submersion for three weeks on various species of chrysalises of common moths, but none were the worse for it except some naturally protected by cocoons, of which I deprived them for the purpose of the experiment ; and not all of these. It is probably different with summer floods, at least in the case of those insects which are about to assume the winged state, as many summer chrysalises would be. As regards cold winters succeeding wet summers, the summer of 1860 was the most wet and sunless I remember; a farmer told me that in 1859 he had cleared all his " white crops " in July, but in 1860 he had not begun to do so until September, and wheat was standing out (nncarried) till the latter part of December. Christmas Day, 1860, was considered the coldest day of the century. But I do not think the whole of that winter was so severe as the winter of 1854-55, when I saw a long line of salt-water ice thrown up
along the beach at Brighton.—I am, Sir, &c., F. M.
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