THE NATURALIST?.

Otago Witness, Issue 1951, 11 April 1889, Page 37

THE NATURALIST?.

A COMFORTABLE WAY OF SPENDING WINTER. / That is a very comfortable habit many animals have of curling themselves up in a snug corner in the autumn and snoozing peacefully off until the spring. It is commonly assumed that the dormant condition is due to cold; This is a mistake, howerer, except in so far as cold may induce sleep, which is the preliminary to hibernation. As a matter of fact, animals which retire in this way for the winter usually do so before the cold sets in. Besides, it is very well known that there are many creatures which, if so shocking a bull might be pardoned^ hibernate in the summer.- In England the hedgehog sleeps through the winter-months. In Madagascar'thereis an animal very closely allied'to it which in a similar way lies dormant during three of the hottest of the summer months— aestivates, as scientific men say. Mr Darwin tells us that when at Bahia Blanca he thought Nature had given hardly a living thing to that arid and sandy region. By digging in the ground, however, several insects, large spiders, and lizards were found in a half torpid state. , A week after his arrival, as the autumn equinox drew near, there was a general wake up, and very shortly the country teemed with life. Hibernation is certainly not due to extreme cold ; indeed, an exceedingly low temperature will arouse a dormant animal, and if the temperature be continued at a very low point it will be the death of it. Nor does it seem to be actual privation of food which leads to the dormant state, though the food supply evidently has a good deal to do with the matter. As a rule, the hibernator gets very fat as winter approaches ; j even the frog stows away a mass of adipose matter. Squirrels not only feed well, but they lay up a store of food before going off into their intermittent winter sleep. There is no doubt that the assumption of the dormant state is more or less a voluntary matter, and, though it is not starvation which induces the condition, circumstances have much to do with-it. It is well known that animals often gire 1 up the habit of hibernating if things are made tolerably comfortable for them during the winter. The brown bear, for instance, in its wild state, invariably hibernates ; but in the Zoological Gardens it does so only partially. The Isabelline bears, from Northern India, retain the habit in captivity, andso do some of the marmots ; but .as a rule, with a regular supply of food and comfortable shelter, the practice is given up. The field mouse, we believe, is dormant only when food is inaccessible except by seeking it in a cold and cheerless world. In the middle of a corn rick the creature will be only too wide awake all through winter. That may appear to suggest, that it is often scarcity of food which leads to hibernation; but, however plentiful food may be, if it can only be got by exposure to wet and cold, the field mouse soon gives up the quest, retires into a snug corner, and curls himself up to sleep. 1 A naturalist relates a curious story of a frog, which, having access to a kitchen fire, gave up its winter habit of snoozing in the mud of the Thames at Kingston, and regularly resorted to the hearth for warmth. : A good deal of light was thrown upon the physiology of the subject by the discovery of the fact that, just in proportion as the animal's respiration subsides into quiescence, its muscular irritability becomes increased. Everybody knows that as sleep steals on, the whole animal economy slows down, as it were, and, as it has been already intimated, the preliminary stage of hibernation is ordinary sleep. • As sleep emerges into the hibernating condition, the lungs act more and more feebly, until their functions are nearly or altogether arrested. Less and less oxygen is consumed, until the creature can do with none at all, and may, it is said, be plunged into carbonic acid gas, or be held under water without drowning. But as respiration falls off and temperature lessens, nervous irritability increases. The smaller the amount of oxygen consumed.the smaller will be the galvanic force necessary to affect its muscular system. " Rough on Catabkh " corrects offensive jdours at once. Complete cure of worst chronic 3aßes ; also unequal as gargle for diphtheria, sore jhroafc, foul breath. —Stepdaughter: "Pa, did you have another wife before ma? "—"Yes, my dear; why do you ask ?"—"? "— " Oh, only because I though if she was anything like ma, I don't wonder you're so bald."