PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 49 



food, and went to sleep again. When they were awake, 

 their temperature, (which he found by placing a ther- 

 mometer under their stomachs) was about 95*^; when they 

 were dormant, their temperature was only 45"; that of 

 the atmosphere being 42^^. In the month of February, 

 with the atmospheric temperature at 50°, both hedgehogs 

 were dormant, the temperature of one being 52*^, and 

 that of the other i^ lower. On the next day, the air 

 temperature being 49^, the temperature of one hedge- 

 hog, who had woke up for a bit, was 87°; of the other, 

 who was asleep, many degrees lower. The difference 

 between the air temperature and that of the animals under 

 observation was on one occasion no less than 39*^. 

 Similar observations were made in the case of dormice. 

 These two kinds of creatures seem to wake up at call of 

 hunger, to eat, (if they have access to food, in default 

 whereof, I expect they perish) and then again become 

 dormant in temperatures which may be called moderate ; 

 but the bat, which could not find its food, however 

 swiftly and keen-sightedly it might swirl through the air, 

 as a rule sleeps the winter through. 



There are therefore degrees between ordinary sleep — 

 broken at longer or shorter intervals, and profound hiber- 

 nation. The ordinary sleep produces or rather induces 

 less vivification, as far as the action of respiration is 

 concerned, as also a less evolution of contained heat, with 

 at the same time an increased power of resistance to the 

 abstraction of a greater or less extent of atmospheric air. 

 This sleep, in some instances, passes into true hibernation. 

 The blood becomes less arterial and more venous for the 

 diminution of respiration, and the muscular fibre of the 

 heart acquires increased irritability. 



Various functions of the system during the period of 

 hibernation are, of course, much modified. The process 

 of sanguification is, in most cases, all but arrested, 

 possibly entirely in some. There is also a marked 



D 



