366 Hybernation. 



formation I received from Capt. Shaylor, and from my own careful 

 examination of the cavern and all attending circumstances, I was 

 fully satisfied of the impossibilly of any such ingress or egress, after 

 the closing of their domicil by the avalanche. Is it to be supposed 

 that the frog, immersed in water, and snugly lodged in his bed of 

 mud at the bottom of a pond, or other body of stagnant water, ex- 

 periences any less inconvenience or inquietude during the continu- 

 ance of our winter months, than he would do, provided the same 

 temperature of atmosphere and state of the weather should be pro- 

 tracted for fifty or a hundred years? 



Moulting of Birds and casting of Horns. 



Mr. Lea, after speaking of the hybernation of various and differ- 

 ent kinds of animals, says, page 80, " the moulting of birds, as well 

 as their migration, is a species of hybernation. The first is a pre- 

 paration for winter, and their change of color, adapting itself to the 

 season, frequently perplexes the ornithologist and causes spurious 



species." 



In addition to this I w r ould mention another species of retirement, 

 which might be called hybernation, if it were not performed in the 

 summer. I allude to the annual casting off, or, as it is vulgarly call- 

 ed, the shedding of the horns of the male elk, and of the buck, which 

 has some analogy with moulting. It is well known by all huntsmen, 

 and other woodsmen in the western part of our country, that these 

 animals, about the first of June, instinctively retire alone to some sol- 

 itary, close thicket by the side of a spring or small stream of water, 

 environed by low brushwood and brakes. In this retreat, they con- 

 tinue their abode till sometime in July, during which time they take 

 little, if any other nourishment, than what the water affords them. 

 This is known from their emaciated state, at the time they leave 

 their retreats. After casting off the old horn, the new immediately 

 sprouts out, the first appearance of which is, (of the buck,) about 

 three fingers in breadth and about two in thickness, consisting of a 

 soft, spongy, flexible substance filled with blood vessels, and covered 

 by a cuticle, clothed with a thick velvet coating. During the ten 

 or fifteen days of the first growth of the greenhorn, which is very 

 rapid, the animal moves but little, as though sensible of the danger 

 of rupturing the blood vessels should they be brought into contact 

 with a tree or other hard substance. As the new growth becomes 

 more indurated, the cuticle or scarf skin cracks, and by degrees- 



