In cold and temperate latitudes a great majority of insects pass the winter in a dormant state, either in the larval, pupal or imaginal (reproductive) stages. In some the state of hibernation is complete in the sense that although the insects may be roused from their lethargy to the extent of movement by spells of warm weather, they do not leave their hibernacula to feed; in others it is incomplete in the sense that the insects emerge to feed, as in the case of the caterpillar of Euprepia fuliginosa, or to take the wing as in the case of the midge Trichocera hiemalis. Others again, like Podura nivalis and Boreus hiemalis, never appear to hibernate, at least in England. The insects which hibernate as larvae belong to those species which pass more than one season in that stage, such as the goat-moth (Cossus ligniperda), cockchafers (Melolontha), stagbeetles (Lucanus) and dragon-flies (Libellula), &c.; and to some species which, although they only live a few months in this immature state, are hatched in the autumn or summer and only reach the final stage of growth in the following spring, like the butterflies of the genus Argynnis (paphia, aglaia, &c.) in England. As an instance of species which survive the winter in the pupal or chrysalis stage may be cited the swallow-tailed butterfly of Europe (Papilio machaon); while to the category of species which hibernate as perfect insects belong many of the Coleoptera (Rhyncophora, Coccinellidae), &c., as well as some Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera and Lepidoptera (Vanessa io, urticae, &c.). In the case of the social Hymenoptera it is only the fertilized queen wasp out of the nest that survives the frost of winter, all the workers dying with the onset of cold in the autumn; the common hive bees (Apis mellifica), although they retire to the hive, do not hibernate, the numbers and activity of the individuals within the hive being sufficient to keep up the temperature above soporific point. Ants also remain actively at work underground unless the temperature falls several degrees below zero.
Spiders, like nearly all insects, hibernate in cold temperate latitudes. Burrowing species like trap-door spiders of the family Ctenizidae and some species of Lycosidae seal the doors of their burrows with silk or close up the orifice with a sheet of that material. Other non-burrowing species, like some species of Clubionidae and Drassidae, lie up in silken cases attached to the underside of stones or of pieces of loose bark, or buried under dead leaves or concealed in the cracks of walls. Other species, on the contrary, pass the winter in an immature state protected from the cold by the silken cocoon spun by the mother for her eggs before she dies in the late autumn, as in the “garden spider” (Aranea diadema). Commonly, however, when the cocoons are later in the making, or the cold weather sets in early, the eggs of this and of allied species do not hatch until the spring; but in either case the young emerge in the warm weather, become adult during the summer and die in the autumn after pairing and oviposition. Some members of this family, nevertheless, like Zilla x-notata, which live in the corners of windows, or in outhouses where the habitat affords a certain degree of protection from the cold, may survive the winter in the adult stage and be roused from lethargy by breaks in the weather and tempted by the warmth to spin new webs. Typical members of the Opiliones or harvest spiders, belonging to the family Phalangiidae, do not hibernate in temperate and more northern latitudes in Europe and America, but perish in the autumn, leaving their eggs buried in the soil to hatch in the succeeding spring. During the early summer, therefore, only immature individuals are found. Other species of this order, belonging to the family Trogulidae, spend the winter in a dormant state under stones or buried in the soil. False scorpions (Pseudo-scorpiones) also hibernate in temperate latitudes, passing the cold months, like many spiders, enclosed in silken cases attached to the underside of stones or loosened pieces of bark. Centipedes and millipedes bury themselves in the earth, or lie up in some secluded shelter such as stones or fallen tree trunks afford during the winter; and in the tropics millipedes lie dormant during seasons of drought.
What is true of the dormant condition of arthropod life in the winter of the northern hemisphere is also true in a general way of that of the southern hemisphere at the same season of the year. This is proved—to mention no other cases—by the observations of Darwin on the hibernation of insects and spiders at Montevideo and Bahia Blanca in South America, and by Distant’s account of the paucity of insect life in the winter in South Africa; by his discovery under stones of hibernating semi-torpid Coleoptera and Hemiptera at the end of August in the Transvaal, and of the gradual increase in the numbers of individuals and species of insects in that country as the spring advanced and the dry season came to an end.
Bibliography.—T. Bell, A History of British Reptiles (and Amphibians) (1849); W. T. Blanford, Fauna of British India: Mammalia (1889-1891); G. A. Boulenger, Monograph of the Tailless Batrachians of Europe, edited by the Ray Society; “Teleostei” in Cambridge Natural History, vii. 541-727 (1904); T. W. Bridge, “Dipneustei” in Cambridge Natural History, vii. 505-520 (1904); A. H. Cooke, “Molluscs” in Cambridge Natural History, iii. 25-27 (1895); T. A. Coward, P.Z.S. pp. 849-855 (1906), and pp. 312-324 (1907); C. Darwin, A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World, pp. 97-98 (1907 ed.); W. L. Distant, A Naturalist in the Transvaal, ch. iii. (1892); Marshall Hall, “Hibernation,” in Todd’s Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, pp. 764-776 (1839) (Bibliography); Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. (1832); John Hunter, Observations on parts of the Animal Economy (1837); Index Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General’s Office of the U.S. Army, vii. (1902), Bibliography relating to physiology of Hibernation; W. Kirby and W. Spence, An Introduction to Entomology, ed. 17, pp. 517-533 (1856); L. Landois, A Text-book of Human Physiology, translated by W. Stirling, i. 410 (1904); V. Laporte, “Suspension of Vitality in Animals,” Pop. Sci. Monthly, xxxvi. 257-259 (New York, 1889-1890); Mangili, “Essai sur la léthargie périodique,” Annales du Muséum, x. 453-456 (1807); C. Hart Merriam, North American Pocket Mice (Washington, 1889); W. Miller, “Hibernation and Allied States in Animals,” Trans. Pan-Amer. Med. Congr. (1893), pt. ii. pp. 1274-1285 (Washington, 1895); M. S. Pembrey and A. G. Pitts, “The Relation between the Internal Temperature and the Respiratory Movements of Hibernating Animals,” Journ. Physiol. (London, 1899), pp. 305-316; Prunelle, “Recherches sur les phénomènes et sur les causes du sommeil hivernal,” Annales du Muséum, xviii.; J. A. Saissy, Recherches sur les animaux hivernans (1808); L. Spallanzani, Mémoires sur la respiration (1803); J. Emerson Tennent, Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon, pp. 351-358 (1861); Volkov, “Le Sommeil hivernal chez les paysans russes,” Bull. Mem. Soc. Anthropol. (Paris, 1900), i. 67; abstract in Brit. Med. Journ. (1900), i. 1554.
(R. I. P.)
HIBERNIA, in ancient geography, one of the names by which Ireland was known to Greek and Roman writers. Other names were Ierne, Iuverna, Iberio. All these are adaptations of a stem from which also Erin is descended. The island was well known to the Romans through the reports of traders, so far at least as its coasts. But it never became part of the Roman empire. Agricola (about A.D. 80) planned its conquest, which he judged an easy task, but the Roman government vetoed the enterprise. During the Roman occupation of Britain, Irish pirates seem to have been an intermittent nuisance, and Irish emigrants may have settled occasionally in Wales; the best attested emigration is that of the Scots into Caledonia. It was only in post-Roman days that Roman civilization, brought perhaps by Christian missionaries like Patrick, entered the island.
HICKERINGILL (or Hickhorngill), EDMUND (1631-1708), English divine, lived an eventful life in the days of the Commonwealth and the Restoration. After graduating at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was junior fellow in 1651-1652, he joined Lilburne’s regiment as chaplain, and afterwards served in the ranks in Scotland and in the Swedish service, ultimately becoming a captain in Fleetwood’s regiment. He then lived for a time in Jamaica, of which he published an account in 1661. In the same year he was ordained by Robert Sanderson, bishop of Lincoln, having already passed through such shades of belief as are connoted by the terms Baptist, Quaker and Deist. From 1662 until his death in 1708 he was vicar of All Saints’, Colchester. He was a vigorous pamphleteer, and came into collision with Henry Compton, bishop of London, to whom he had to pay heavy damages for slander in 1682. He made a public recantation in 1684, was excluded from his living in 1685-1688, and ended his career by being convicted for forgery in 1707.