HIBERNATION, ETC., IN ANIMALS. S3 



of torpor during summer by exposing it to a lowered temperature I do uot know. 

 However, Marshall Hall maintained that the diurnal sleep of the bat (" diurnation ") 

 was exactly the same phenomenon as the winter sleep. The same writer maintained 

 that hibernating bats always awoke when the temperature fell below freezing point, and 

 his observations showed that the temperature of the animals was always a few degrees 

 above that of the surrounding atmosphere. Probably Hall is correct in the main, for my 

 bats when the temperature sank during the night much below freezing were always 

 found dead in the morning. Whether they awoke first or simply pa.?sed from torpor to 

 death I do not know. 



However, for the marmot I can assert positively that this rule does not hold, for fre- 

 tjuently the water was found frozen in the apartment in which the animal was kept, yet 

 he was undisturbed. Nevertheless, I came to the conclusion that this exposure is injuii- 

 otts to a hibernating animal and that it had something to do with the poor condition in 

 which my specimen was found in the spring of the year in which he died. 



Before discussing the true nature of the phenomena of the winter sleep, I call atten- 

 tion to certain cases of allied nature. 



Such frequent references as we find to the hibernation of swallows deserve some 

 consideration. 



It is also stated that in Scotland sheep have been found alive after being buried 

 for weeks beneath the snow ; and Dr. Frank Miller of Burlington, Vt., reported when a 

 student to the Society for the Study of Comparative Psychology at Moutreal, that hogs 

 had been found alive after being accidentally imprisoned below the surface for several 

 weeks; longer than it seemed possible for them to survive under ordinary circumstances, 

 so that it would appear they had been in a condition of hibernation or some such state. 



Turning to the human subject : We have all read of instances in man of " sus- 

 pended animation " or " trance." The case of Fakirs in India having been buried alive, 

 exhumed and resuscitated after mouths is attested by such evideuceas it is difficult to set 

 aside, however hard to credit. 



Mr. D. W. Ross, a student in Medicine of McG-ill University, has gathered the facts 

 of a peculiar case in so far as they are now obtainable. The individual in question was 

 known as " Sleepy Joe," a farmer by occupation. He was married and had several 

 children, one of whom, a girl, had the same drowsy appearance as her father. This man 

 would sleep almost constantly for several weeks, awakening, howcA-er, to attend to 

 nature's calls and to take food. He would at times awake more fully and then set to 

 work whether it was day or night and almost incessantly labour as if to make up for 

 lost time. He was rather weak mentally, but appeared ashamed of his sleepy tendencies 

 which seemed to get worse as he grew older. He lived to be about 60 years of age. 



Dr. Aug. Robinson of Annapolis, has kindly given the following notes of a unique 

 case. 



John T., son of a pensioner, is now about sixty-two years old. When he was twenty- 

 eight years of age his father committed suicide by cutting his throat in a fit of insanity. 

 Before his father's death, John had shown symptoms of melancholia. He would sit by 

 the hour over his father's bench (cobbler's), laughing and talking to himself, and work- 

 ing himself into a frenzy, fighting imaginary foes, and going into immoderate fits of 

 laughter. 



I cannot ascertain, after much inquiry, how long this condition of things lasted be- 



