VITALITY SUSPENDED IN WINTER. 83 



temporary abundance of summer, and in this fat sup- 

 plied them with a narcotic to incline them to sleep, as 

 well as food to support them while it lasts ; and that 

 at the same time that these little devourers are laid 

 asleep, and, from their concealment in their hiding- 

 places, they cease to afford prey to the larger devour- 

 ers, whom they serve for food, these, in their turn, also 

 lose thought and motion. Those that would be de- 

 prived of food, by the snow covering that which they 

 feed upon, sleep till the snow melts, and a little long- 

 er. Perhaps, for a similar reason, the white bear, 

 which lives by fishing on the sea- shore during the 

 summer, and on the islands of ice in autumn, does not 

 fall asleep till the ice, united, thickened, and raised too 

 high above the water, is no longer the resort of the 

 seal. As the means of subsistence continues longer, 

 a much severer degree of cold is requisite to deaden, in 

 this animal, the appetite for seeking it, than in the 

 black bear, which is a great devourer of honey and 

 vegetables. Still less cold can the brown bear endure, 

 which lives on animals that winter drives early into 

 their retreats. 



" This exact correspondence between the inclination 

 to eat, and a supply of food, cannot be attributed to 

 blind chance or accident, but to the arrangement of an 

 All-wise Intelligence, that has fitted all the parts of 

 the universe to each other ; and, in the races of ani- 



