40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CEUP. 



must, within a shorter or longer period, l)y no means an 

 ilhmitahle one, cease to exist. 



This is one of the laws of Nature, which amongst 

 (ithers is inimitahle and uncxceptionahle, and from man 

 lo the lowest forms of life rules over all. 



Another law of Nature is this: vital functions fail 

 without a supplv of a certain amount of heat. Many 

 animals retain sufficient heat for their existence within 

 their hodies, when the temperature of the surrounding 

 atmosphere is extremely low; e.g., the Arctic fox and 

 other animals inhal)iting the northern regions of the 

 glohe, and possihlv also the southern — of which we know 

 at present so little. 



In the account of the Jackson-Ilarmsworth ex))edition, 

 we read that when the Thermometer registered 50^ 

 helow zero, hears came and ruhhed their noses against 

 the windows of the Russian log-house, in which the 

 explorers were f)assing the winter. 



There is therefore, if 1 may so express it, an internal 

 generation of heat, more or less independent of atmos- 

 pheric inllucnces; hut there can he no animal heat a])art 

 from some measure of a supply of oxygen, and movement 

 of the hlood is necessary. Those animals which have not 

 the ])ro})erty or gift of maintaining their internal tem|)era- 

 ture up to a certain degree — varying considerably in its 

 range, die : other animals having this property survive. 

 Nature in this direction, as in others, has its differential- 

 tions, and whilst some insects survive the winter, and in 

 tattered robes arppear in the sunnier days of spring, and 

 give occasion for letters in provincial prints, others are 

 unable to resist the influence of the cold of any ordinary 

 winter, and though probably equally sufficiently supplied 

 as some others with material to withstand its rigour, 

 are no more, owing to their less instinctive faculties : may 

 it not be so ? 



