34 Hybernation. 



nmrsday, March I9th, 1868. 

 The Society held their Forty-first Meeting at Mr. Farrar's House. 



The exhibitions were : — 



Specimens of Mountain Limestone with Corals; Clysiophyllum Turbi- 

 natum and Cyathophyllum , . . . . . Bt Balfoitb. 



Some Flints, with a view to finding out the reason of the regular layers 

 observable on some of them . . . . By Mb. Fabbab. 



Two Celts, from the Auvergne (Polignac) . . . . By Evans. 



A mass of Serpulee, covered over with Polyzoa . . By Eveeabd. 



A Paper was then read by Strickland on 

 HYBERNATION. 

 Of which the following is an abstract. 



Hybernation is an impoitant phenomenon in nature, as by its means 

 a large section of animal life is preserved during the cold of winter, 

 and in some rare cases during the heat of summer — of the latter 

 the curious tropical fish the Lepidosiren is an exemplification. 

 Early in the spring this remarkable creature forms round itself a 

 cell of clay ; the interior is found, when opened, to be perfectly 

 smooth and damp ; the exterior being rough and hard, generally 

 rather larger in size than a man's fist. In this retreat does the 

 Lepidosiren pass the summer months, and it is only when the 

 rainy season has dissolved the walls of its prison-home that it 

 once more revives to enjoy the plentiful moisture so necessary for 

 its existence. Passing on, then, from this exceptional case to the 

 animals which hybernate during the winter months, we notice one 

 interesting fact — that as we ascend in the scale of animal life the 

 phenomenon we are considering appears in a much more modified 

 form and more rarely. For instance, among the articulata a dis- 

 tinct change takes place in their form and mode of life ; in some 

 of the mollusca a skin is formed which close the entrance to the 

 shell ; but in the vertebrate animals no external change of form is 

 to be observed. Cold-blooded animals hybernate with greater 

 regularity, as tortoises, and some kinds of fish, than the warm- 

 blooded — fish indeed have been brought to life after been frozen 

 so hard in blocks of ice that their bodies could be easily snapped 

 in two. Among birds hybernation is of rare occurence, though 



