ON TORPIDITY IN ANIMALS. 



163 



the knowledge of this fact, by planting a colony of these in- 

 sects in a kitchen, where a constant fire is kept through the 

 summer, but which la discontinued from November to June, 

 with the exception of a day once in six or eight weeks. The 

 crickets were brought from a distance, and let go in this 

 room in the beginning of September 1806; here they in- 

 creased considerably in the course of two months, but were 

 not heard or seen after the fire was removed. Their disap- 

 pearance led me to conclude, that the cold had killed them; 

 but in this I was mistaken : for a brisk fire being kept up 

 for a whole day in the winter, the warmth of it invited my 

 colony from their hiding-place, but not before the evening; 

 after which they continued to skip about and chirp the 

 greater part of the following day, when they again disap- 

 peared, being compelled by the returning cold to take re- 

 fuge in their former retreats. They left the chimney corner 

 on the 28th of May, 1807, after a fit of very hot weather, 

 and revisited their winter residence on the 31st of August. 

 Here they spent the autumn merely, and lie torpid at pre- 

 sent in the crevices of the chimney, with the exception of 

 those days, on which they are recalled to a temporary exist- 

 ence by the comforts of a fire. 



Crickets are commonly supposed to be exempted by na- 

 ture from the hardships of torpidity; but the preceding nar- 

 rative proves the exemption to be conditional in these in- . 

 sects; and those who take the liberty to argue from analogy 

 will feel an inclination, to attribute the same accommodating 

 faculty to other animals, some of which are nearly connect- 

 ed with the welfare of society. In reality, the supposition Sheep can live 

 is strongly favoured by facts : for we have frequent instances sn o^ Un ^ 

 in this part of the nation, of sheep living three or four 

 weeks under drifts of snow, where they can procure little or 

 no food ; and a ewe was recovered alive from a drift at En- 

 nerdale in Cumberland, on Christmas-day last, after re- 

 maining under it five weeks in a space not exceeding one 

 yard in diameter. If the same or any other sheep were con- 

 fined half the time in a moderately warm room, with but 

 one square yard of grass, no doubt could be entertained 

 respecting the event of the experiment. 



Much has been said respecting the torpidity of those birds a. remark on 

 M 2 which 



