67 
the sun’s warm rays, protected from the chilly 
north winds; but as a rule snakes ‘turn in’ 
for a prolonged sleep with the first real evi- 
dences of winter’s advent. Now this long term 
of slumber is called hibernation, a period of 
absolute inactivity in a state of torpidity, insen- 
sible to the pangs of hunger and the chilling 
frosts of winter’s inclemency. This condition 
of insensibility is a happy provision of Nature 
especially beneficial to such ‘cold blooded,’ ani- 
mals as reptiles. 
The natural food of snakes is almost entirely 
lacking during the freezing cold of winter, so 
to lie dormant during this season of serious 
scarcity of sustenance is certainly an agreeable 
way to escape starvation. Frogs, toads, and 
other batrachians subsist largely on insects, 
and our common snakes depend for their sus- 
tenance on frogs, toads, small mammals, birds 
and insects, nearly all of which disappear with 
the arrival of the first chilling frosts of winter. 
Thus deprived of their natural food the snakes 
are compelled during this season of ‘short 
rations’ to lie torpid or to starve. Nature has 
endowed these creatures with an instinct that 
leads them to hibernate during the season of 
limited food supplies, and thus pass weeks in a 
state of absolute freedom from gnawing appetite. 
Another cause for hibernation among the 
ophidians is found in the fact that due to an 
imperfect aeration of the blood from a defective 
circulation of the vital fluid, the snake would 
