Observations of the lower animals in the winter.

Find out the asylum, in which different groups of wintering hide: under rocks and boards, under bark, in moss in the land (note the depth), etc. Record the temperature and general weather conditions under which managed to find being in a daze animal. Check whether the animals found dead or numb (to the room and follow the beginning of a movement warmed insect). Set temperature at which the insects come to life, in a state of torpor. Observations can be supplied with a simple homemade plant. At the edge of jars with cold water in which swim icicles, put a narrow and thin plate with slotted round holes in it for 3-5 tubes. The tubes are fixed in the holes with cotton wool or paper wrappers. At the bottom of each tube, put the test insect, the top of her shut up with cotton wool, and then the whole battery of tubes is lowered into the water with a thermometer, which should indicate the temperature of the water. The entire instrument is made in a warm room and watch the gradual heating of the banks. At the first movements of the insect warming note: a) the temperature of recovery, and b) the behavior of insects in the first minutes after waking up. With the same installation can be monitored and to determine at what temperature flow at rest are different invertebrates. It would be interesting to do experiments on representatives of different units and groups. Change the setting will have only in the sense that the test animals loose lump of cotton wool block the way up and it is thus retained on the bottom of the tube. The water temperature in the bank at the beginning of the experiment should be equal to room temperature (17-19 ° C) and then cooled and harvested by adding ice cubes, or simply the imposition of the entire apparatus of the cold. Observations of this kind have so far been very scarce. Thus, groups of young biologists could do interesting work independently and to obtain valuable new scientific data for a number of animals.