110 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 



the woodchuck answered like a barometer to predict 

 storms. In fact, I am satisfied that many wild animals 

 have a delicate perception of meteorological conditions 

 which man has not, and which, in a sense, makes them 

 wiser than our science, and wiser than they know, for 

 they act reflexly, as it were. Often my marmot would 

 be heard in the night scraping the straw about him 

 prior to a storm that did not reach us for many 

 hours after. 



Marshall Hall laid it down as one of his principal 

 conclusions that in hibernating animals "muscular 

 irritability " is increased. 



If the term reflex be substituted for muscular, I 

 believe the conclusion is correct. I found, as a result 

 of scores of trials, that when the marmot was hibernat- 

 ing, he was more sensitive to slight stimuli, such as 

 blowing on the hairs of the skin, than when merely 

 sleeping. Plainly this was not a case of muscular 

 irritability at all, but it does indicate that the reflex 

 mechanism is more excitable, as it is, for example, in an 

 animal under the influence of strychnine, and as it is 

 in animals from which a portion of the cerebrum has 

 been removed. 



It may be because the unconsciousness is so pro- 

 found, i.e. the brain so far from its ordinary functional 

 activity, for it is well-established that the brain in- 

 hibits the spinal cord normally, to a certain extent. 



Apparently this increased reflex excitability must be 

 to the advantage of a hibernating animal, for the cord 

 and medulla oblongata are the parts of the nervous 

 centres that especially preside over the functions of 

 organic life, which are necessary to maintain a mere 

 animal existence. 



All problems of a biological kind must ultimately be 

 referred to cells, and so with this of hibernation. 

 Indeed, it would seem that unicellular animals pass 



