Hybernation. 35 



swallows have been found in this state in old walls — araong 

 mammals the white bear is the most obvious instance of this state. 

 She forms a cell by allowing the snow to drift above her body, and 

 the heat of her breath forms a narrow aperture at the top — White, 

 in his History of Selbourne, gives several remarkable stories of 

 bats being found in vaults that had not been opened for seventy 

 years. There is no reason to doubt so accurate a Natural His- 

 torian ; and these anecdotes are doubly interesting from the high 

 position which the Noctules hold in the scale of animal life. We 

 now come to the consideration of this remarkable state in man. 

 (This part was chiefly abstracted from the pamphlet on Hypnotism, 

 by Braid.) The long trances of the Fakeers, and their power of 

 self-hypnotism, is similar to the disease known in Europe by 

 the name of catalepsy. That they do possess this power, which 

 is indisputable, from the amount of evidence which has been 

 adduced. (Several stories were here told of the temporary 

 interments of Fakeers). Mesmerism is also analogous to this 

 condition, and one of the methods of mesmerising is similar to 

 that practised by the Fakeers. " Hold a penknife in the left hand 

 in front of the patient's eyes, but so much above him as to strain 

 the eyes upwards — after about ten minutes move the right hand 

 from the penknife towards the patient's eyes, keeping the first and 

 second fingers as far as possible extended." This will cause him 

 to close his eyes, and if he is put into any position he will remain 

 in it immovable, or will follow wherever the person who mes- 

 merises him desires. From a careful examination of bodies under 

 mesmerism, or while in a state of hybernation, it has been found 

 that the heat is much less, that the action of the heart is much 

 weaker, and consequently, that the waste of tissues goes on at a 

 much slower rate. — For this reason, too, it is manifest that cold 

 must produce a state of hybernation which accounts for the pheno- 

 menon in frozen fish, and, indeed, for its occurences in all the 

 vertebrata. Where it is part of the ordinary life of an animal 

 there a distinct change is observed ; and where it is produced by 

 artificial means, a link is yet to be supplied ere we can hope in 

 any small degree to gain a certain knowledge of the mysteries of 

 hybernation. 



We have seen, then, that it runs throughout the animal creation, 

 that it is greatly modified in the higher forms of life — in some 

 voluntary, in others involuntary — that animals under its influence 

 are found to be at a cooler temperature — having a slower action of 

 the heart, and consequently slower waste of tissues ; that it enters 

 largely into the economy of nature ; but that the causes which 

 produce it have yet to be ascertained. 



