species of wasp and is, I think, worthy of ence with a pair of Rocky Mountain 

 careful study. I wish I had space to tell ground squirrels. After missing them 

 of the almost fiendish ingenuity that cer- for a month he accidentally found them 

 tain parasites show in maintaining them- curled up under some straw, apparently 

 selves at the expense of their hosts. frozen stiff. He brought them to the 

 The ground hog has a knack of spend- house to show his wife the misfortune that 

 ing his winter in a way that is at once eco- had befallen his pets. Soon they seemed 

 nomical and pleasant. They generally to thaw out and scampered about as lively 

 hibernate in pairs, rolling themselves up as ever. No sooner were they put out 

 into balls. They do not seem to breathe in the cold than they resumed their sleep, 

 or to perform any of the life functions which continued all winter, their bodies 

 during their long six months' sleep, maintaining a fairly constant tempera- 

 There is, I fear, no foundation of fact for ture, seldom falling below three degrees 

 the ancient fiction of the ground hog ap- above the freezing point of water. They 

 pearing and making weather prognosti- came out in the spring as chipper as if 

 cations on the second of February. A they had been asleep but one night. Many 

 gentleman writing in the New York Sun hibernating animals will if wakened by 

 of some years since says : "I took the being placed in a warm room, eat eagerly, 

 trouble once to dig into a woodchuck's but they soon show a desire to resume 

 burrow on Candlemas day, and a warm, their nap. 



cloudy day it was ; just such a day when The Loir, a peculiar little native of 



the ground hog is said to come out of his Senegal, never hibernates in its native 



hole and stay out. I found two wood^ clime, but every specimen brought to Eu- 



chucks in the burrow, with no more signs rope becomes torpid when exposed to 



of life about them than if they had been cold. The common land tortoise wher- 



shot and killed. From all outward ap- ever he may be and he is a voracious eater 



pearances I could have taken them out of almost anything always goes to sleep 



and had a game of football with them in November, and wakes some time in 



without their knowing it." May. 



Nor is it true that hibernating animals Just as in the north numerous animals 



live upon their accumulated fat, for di- hibernate upon approach of cold, so in 



gestion, as well as other active life pro- the south there are species that may be 



cesses, ceases. Hibernating animals al- said to estivate during the hottest 



ways begin their long sleep upon an weather. While the northern animals 



empty stomach, and food injected into curl up so as to retain heat, his southern 



their stomach is not digested. The fat cousin straightens out as much as possi- 



disappears, it is true, but it is not in any ble to allow the heat to escape from all 



strict sense digested. Any experienced parts of the body. 



hunter is aware that unless the entrails But it was not my intention to write an 

 are removed from the shot rabbit the fat essay upon hibernation and allied phe- 

 will disappear from about the kidneys, nomena, but merely to speak of it as a 

 The fat may, and no doubt does, assist in subject that should be investigated, 

 some way in the long sleep. It may act What a splendid arrangement it would 

 as fuel to keep up the right living temper- be for the poor, the sick, and the melan- 

 ature. At any rate, it is true that hiber- choly folk if they could just hibernate for 

 nating animals eat voraciously and grow six months occasionally, 

 very fat just before they go to sleep. It I will merely speak of the light of the 

 is a peculiar fact that many hibernating so called lightning bug, with its over 

 animals bring forth their young during ninety per centum efficiency and no heat 

 this period. This is especially true of and no consumption of fuel to speak of. 

 woodchucks and bears. It is a common Why doesn't some genius learn her Ian- 

 experience with hunters that only male guage and find out how she does it ? She 

 bears are killed during the winter season. has been trying for centuries to demon- 

 Mr. Andrew Fuller of Ridgewood, strate it but we are too stupid to learn her 

 New Jersey, according to the article secret. Rowland Watts, 

 above quoted, had an interesting experi- 



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