HIBERNATION 361 



The supply of food may also be a factor producing this condition, as 

 torpidity in dormice and groundhogs is delayed or prevented when the 

 food supply is plentiful. I question this for the following reasons: 

 Spermophiles and marmots retire for their winter sleep when their food 

 supply is at its best; they only remain active until the full coating of 

 fat is acquired. Here in British Columbia they will retire a month or 

 more earlier in the low lands than they do at the timber line. In the 

 latter regions they have not acquired enough fat until the end of Sep- 

 tember, as they come out of hibernation later in the spring. 



In this connection it is interesting to note the influence of the food 

 supply on man, protectively causing a condition closely resembling 

 hibernation. For instance, there is in Eussia a certain class of peasants 

 who suffer from a chronic state of famine which becomes more acute 

 at the end of the year and more or less severe according to circum- 

 stances. In these cases, when the head of the family sees, towards the 

 end of autumn, that by a normal consumption of their supply of wheat 

 it will not last the family through the winter, he makes arrangements 

 to diminish the rations as much as possible. Knowing that it will be 

 difficult to preserve their health and keep up the physical force neces- 

 sary for their work in the spring, he and his family plunge themselves 

 into a condition known as " lejka " which means that everybody simply 

 goes to bed, lying down on the top of the flat stove, and there they stay 

 during the four or five months of winter. They get up, during this 

 time, only to replenish the fire, eat a small piece of black bread and 

 take a small drink of water. The peasant and his family try to move 

 as little as possible and sleep as much as they can — stretched out on the 

 stove top, they preserve almost complete immobility. Their only care 

 during the long winter is to keep down the body metabolism, to waste 

 as little as possible of their animal heat, and for that reason they try 

 to eat and drink less, move less, and to generally reduce the activities 

 of their bodies. Their instinct commands them to sleep as much as 

 possible — obscurity and silence reign in the hut where, in the warmest 

 place, either singly or crowded, the occupants pass the winter season in 

 a condition closely resembling hibernation. 



The following observations are purely physiological phenomena, 

 occurring in mammals only. 



Bespiration 

 The frequency of respiration is greatly diminished, the rhythm is 

 irregular and often of the Cheyne-Stokes type. 9 What little respira- 



9 In the Cheyne-Stokes type of respiration, there is a pause in the respi- 

 ratory act, then a small respiration occurs, to be followed by a deeper one; 

 then a still deeper act and so on until the maximum is reached, when the 

 respirations begin to gradually diminish until they die away altogether. This 

 is followed by a prolonged pause, then they gradually begin again. 



vol. lxxvii. — 25. 



