April, 1909.] 



On Hibernation in the Raccoon. 



495 



ON HIBERNATION IN THE RACCOON. 



S. R. Williams. 



Some years ago, on the third of January, a young raccoon 

 (Procyon lotor Storr) was taken during his winter sleep while a 



hollow sugar tree was being 

 cut clown in Butler County 

 in Southwestern Ohio. 



It is certain that the ani- 

 mal was really hibernating as 

 the weather for more than 

 two weeks before had been 

 very cold, reaching twenty 

 degrees below zero Fahren- 

 heit. An opossum was found 

 in the same woods that day 

 frozen stiff. In the latitvideof 

 Ohio the Raccoon is said to 

 hibernate for at least three 

 months, even four when the 

 winter is severe. 



The animal had a few 

 worn sticks in its stomach, 

 together with a slight amount 

 of liquid very like mucus. 

 There was nothing at all in 

 the small intestine, the walls 

 of which very were thin and 

 thrown in longitudinal folds 

 so that the lumen of the intes- 

 tine was almost obliterated. 

 The inside of the intestine was 

 clean and slightly pinkish in 

 color. There was a small 

 amount of dry fecal matter 

 in the posterior end of the 

 large intestine. 



The major part of the fat 

 on the body was definitely lo- 

 calized. The naked body without the skin weighed 371)0 grams 

 (see figure photographed from the front and right side). A sheet 

 of fat was taken from the rump and upper hind quarters, Vv^hich 

 weighed 416 grams, or one-ninth of the total weight. This was 

 more than half an inch in thickness just in front of the base of 

 the tail and shows plainly on the hind quarters in the photograph. 

 The mesentery, which is shown spread out, had on it 84 grams ol 



