FROCHEDINGS Ol- THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 47 



further diminished, and the degree of irritabihty still 

 further augmented, and the deeper sleep or lethargv 

 of hibernation results. During this lethargy, the law of 

 the universe ratio of the respiration and of the irritability 

 still continues. If the respiration were to be diminished 

 without a corresponding increase in irritability, the heart 

 would cease to be stimulated, and the animal would die, 

 as in the case of torpor, or of asphyxia. If the res[)ira- 

 tion were augmented, without proportionate diminution 

 of irritability, the heart would be over-stimulated, and 

 death in this case also would ensue, as in the instance of 

 an animal too suddenly roused from its lethargy, or 

 of one placed in an atmosphere of pure oxygen gas. 

 A dormouse roused from sleep and exposed to a low 

 temperature did not go to sleep again, but died. 



One difference therefore between those animals which 

 hibernate, and those who do not, seems to be this : that in 

 the former, there is a power of involving, if I may so say, 

 or somehow or other generating, an augmented degree 

 of irritability of the muscular fibres ; a power possessed 

 by all animals within certain limits, but by hibernating 

 animals beyond those limits. 



Sleep, (however a condition both remarkable and 

 perhaps inscrutable it may be in itself) and hibernation 

 are really similar periodic phenomena, induced by some- 

 what similar causes, leading to similar effects, but differing 

 very greatly in degree. Hibernation seems to us more 

 extraordinary than sleej), but only perhaps because it is 

 less familiar to us. Most animals are in fact naturallv 

 awake and asleep each day or night, some being 

 diurnal, others nocturnal in their habits in this rcs[)ect. 

 Sleep may be called the first stage of hibernation. The 

 faculty of passing into the second stage is reallv the 

 acquisition of a greater irritability of the muscular fibres. 

 Many have made mistakes by viewing hibernation as an 

 effect only produced by a low temperature. The influence 



