82 ANALOGOUS CASES OF 



mificationSj revive, notwithstanding, at the return of 

 spring. May not this stagnation of the operations of 

 the fluids of these plants be justly compared with the 

 dormant state of the torpid animals, to which we will 

 now turn our attention ? We see/" continued he, 

 '^ the ant fall asleep in a very slight degree of cold ; 

 and the common fly does the same, with every ap- 

 pearance of being dead. Nor are these, by numbers, 

 the only insects subject to this lethargic sleep. Qua- 

 drupeds have frequently the same propensity. In 

 dormice, marmots, and many other sleepers, life ap- 

 pears to be suspended when cold weather approaches. 

 This suspension of the vital powers is so complete in 

 some of the species, that their heart ceases to beat for 

 whole months. The snail and the toad undergo the 

 same stupefaction. Several serpents exhibit a pheno- 

 menon still more surprising: they can bear to be 

 frozen to so great a degree as to become brittle, and 

 die if they happen to be broken in this state ; but if 

 they be left unmolested in their holes, into which the 

 warmth of spring penetrates very gradually, they 

 revive, and give proof that they were not dead. Is it 

 not a striking mark of creative wisdom, that, in all 

 these tribes, this change takes place in the season 

 when their food begins to fail — when the fruit and 

 herbs on which they feed disappear ? After having 

 prepared them by an increase of fat, occasioned by the 



