ON JDEATII FROM COLD. MSS 



If WO proceed to animals, wc see the ant fall asleep in a Ant, fly, and 



^, . , „ , , , ,, n 1- 21 , other insects, 



very -slight degree of cold ; and the common fly does tlife ^j^^^ -^^ ^^^^' 



same witii every appearance of being dead. Nor are these weather. 



the only insects subject to this lethargic sleep. 



In the class mammalia we have dormice, marmots, a r>d In some of the: 

 othef sleepers, in which life appears to be suspended, when ^j^ended. ' * 

 cold weather comes on. This suspension f)f life is so com- 

 plete in'some of the species, that iheir heart Ceases to beat 

 for whole months. 



The snail and the toad undergo the same stupefaction. Snail and toa^i. 

 Several serpeiits exhibit a phenomenon still more surprising: 

 they can be frozen so as to become brittle, and die if they Serpents may 

 be broken in this state; but if they he left in their holes, ^.'ifbefn'ykili' 

 into which the warmth of spring penetrates by very slow dc- led. 

 greos, they revive, and give proof tliey were not dea/I. 



it IS in the season when their food begins to fail, when the Little fructivo. 

 fruits and herbs on which they fed disappear, after having sleep firlT-^ * 

 fattened them by their temporary abundance, and in this fat 

 supplied them with a narcotic to induce sleep as well as food 

 to support them while it lasts, that most of these little dc- 

 vourers conceal themselves to sleep, and cease to atford prey 

 to the larger devourcrs their enemies, wliich in their turn lose then the larger 

 thought and motion. ^ carnivorous. 



Those that would be deprived of food by the snow cover- They sleep 



ing it, sleep till the snow melts, and a little longer. Perhaps ^^'1^''^ ^l^eir 

 ^ . •/ 1 , • , I • 1 't . ,- , food is wanting, 



for a similar reason the white bear, which lives by fishing on rr 



, . 1 , t • , 1 . Hence the 



the seashore during the summer, and on the islands of ice in white bear re- 

 autumn, does not fall asleep till the ice united, thickened, ^i^es later than 

 . , , . , . . , , the black bearj 



and raised too high above the water, is no longer the resort 



of the seal. His means of subsistence continuing longer, a 

 much severer cold is requisite to deaden in him the call of 

 seeking it, than in the black bear in the first place, a great 

 devourer of honey and vegetables, and next in the brown ^^ ^y^j^ ^^^^ 

 bear, which lives on animals that winter drives into their re- the browji. 

 treats before him. 



That hunger should cease in these animals at the period p^^ jj . 

 when faniine would take place, and in consequence of the ordered it thus, 

 same degree of temperature, is certainly a great benefit con- lhe!n*^froin 

 ferred on them by that luteiUgcncc, which regulates every starving, 



part 



