Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 183 



comes on. A water-rat was ploughed up in England, in the year 

 1769, completely enclosed in a hibernaculum. A mouse was dug 

 up in 1798, enclosed in a ball of clay about the size of a goose e^rg ; 

 when brought into a warm room, it revived and escaped. Twenty 

 or thirty frogs were once taken in a torpid state from a depth of twenty 

 feet in the earth, where they must have remained a hundred years 

 or more. The snail, when about to hibernate, retires into its shell, 

 closing its operculum with a partition of a silky membrane, and a de- 

 posite of carbonate of lime. Sometimes as many as six membran- 

 ous partitions are formed between the opercuhim and the recess of 

 the shell. In this state it remains for months, and the only evi- 

 dence of life is a susceptibility to muscular sensation. It lives 

 without food, without air, and exercising none of the animal genera- 

 tive functions. It does not subsist upon the modicum of air remain- 

 ing in the shell, as this has been examined and found capable of sup- 

 porting combustion — this fact shewing that it had not been breathed. 

 Torpidity is neither life nor death, but an intermediate state — 

 neither is it sleep in the ordinary sense of the word. 



The circulation of hibernating animals is suspended in a state of 

 profound torpidity. 



The digestion also is arrested, and all food is declined. A hedge- 

 hog kept in a room without fire, ate of its food regularly up to 

 December, when it refused it, went into a torpid state and remained 

 so during the winter, never eating food laid before it. A land tor- 

 toise kept for forty years, ate voraciously in summer, but refused all 

 food in winter when hibernating. Absorption goes on, but this is 

 an entirely different process from digestion. The secretions are 

 also arrested. The organs of relation are paralyzed. A torpid 

 dormouse cannot be roused by a shock of electricity ; bats do not 

 feel wounds or hurts, and can be aroused only by heat and currents 

 of air. 



Are the organs of reproduction suspended 1 Upon this point a 

 difference of opinion prevails. As we understood Mr Browne, he 

 was of the opinion that during a torpid state they have nothino- to 

 operate upon but their fat. 



In the anatomical structure and physiology of hibernating animals, 

 a similarity is observed, especially in the construction of the thymus 

 gland. Some naturalists are of the opinion, that fat or the omentum 

 is provided as a covering from the cold or for consumption, while 

 others look upon it as purely an accidental circumstance. But Mr 

 Browne is of the opinion that fat is not an accidental circumstanr-e, 

 but has to do with hibernation. The blood remains in a fluid stato 

 during hibernation. 



Mr Browne was of opinion that the fibrine and albumen which 

 was deficient in the blood of hibernating animals was converted 

 into/a«,- in consequence of which the blood was preserved from con- 

 crctibility and the storehouse of fat was laid up, upon which the 

 animal subfcisted when digestion was extinouishcd. 



