712 



DORIGNY- -DORMANT. 



of in solemn odes, c. g., in hymns ami in dionises, 

 which belonged to the liturgy of Uie Greeks. The 

 Cretan and Spartan legislative codes of Minos and 

 Lycurgus were much more rigid than the mild 

 Athenian institutions of Solon. The Spartan women 

 wore the light, tucket! up limiting dress, while the 

 loniiLii females arrayed themselves in long, sweeping 

 garments. Both liave Inrn idealized by artists ; the 

 luii- ill Diana and her nymphs, the other in Pallas 

 Athene and the CanenhorB. The same contrast ap- 

 pears no less strikingly in their arcliitecture, in the 

 strong, unadorned Doric, and the slender, elegant 

 Ionian columns. In the music of the ancients there 

 was also a Dorian mode. See Music. 



DORIGNY ; the name of several celebrated en- 

 gravers and painters. 



1. MICHAKL DORIGNY, born at St Quentin, in 1618, 

 a scholar of Simon Vouet, whose works he etched, 

 and whose faults in drawing he copied. His style 

 of execution is bold, and his management of light and 

 sliade good. He died while professor of the academy 

 at Paris, in 1665. 



2. His son Locis, bom in 1654, entered the school 

 of Lebrun, and made a journey to Italy, where he 

 copied the great masters. From Venice he went -to 

 Verona, where he settled, and died in 1742. 



3. NICHOLAS, the brother of the latter, born in 

 1657, at Paris, is the most celebrated engraver of 

 the three here noticed. He spent twenty-eight years 

 in Italy, in studying the most illustrious masters, and 

 eight in engraving the famous cartoons of Raphael, 

 at Hampton court, for which he received the honour 

 of knighthood from king George I. In 1725, he be- 

 came a member of the academy at Paris, and died in 

 1746. One of his best engravings, besides his car- 

 toons, is the Transfiguration, from Raphael, and the 

 Apotheosis of St Petronilla, after Guercino. His 

 engraving is easy and strong, and the work of the 

 needle and the graver liappily united. 



DORIS. See Neretu. 



DORKING, a town in the county of Surry, 

 situated in a vale near the river Mole, which is nearly 

 surrounded by hills, and on the road from London to 

 Brighton, twenty-three miles S.S.W. of the former. 

 The town consists of three wide and well-paved 

 streets the East, West, and South ; and has many 

 fine springs in the neighbourhood. Large quantities 

 of fowls, of an excellent kind, and having six claws 

 on the foot, are bred here, and sent to the London 

 markets; they are supposed to have been originally 

 brought over by the Romans. Dorking has a good 

 town-hall, \\ here the sessions used occasionally to be 

 held, but these have been discontinued. Population 

 in 1831, 4711. 



DORMANT state of animals. We are all accus- 

 tomed to see a large part of creation, during summer. 

 in great activity, and in winter returning to an 

 apparently inanimate state : we mean the plants ; 

 but this phenomenon is not common in the case of 

 animals. There is, however, a small number of 

 animals, which, besides the daily rest that they have 

 in common with most other animals, remain, during 

 some months in the year, in an apparently lifeless 

 state ; at least, in utter inactivity. Except the 

 hedgehog and the bat, all the mammalia subject to 

 this dormant state, belong to the class of digitated 

 animals. They are found not only in cold climates, 

 but in very warm ones; for instance, the jerboa in 

 Arabia, and the taurick in Madagascar. The period 

 of long sleep generally begins when the food of the 

 animal begins to become scarce, and inactivity 

 spreads over the vegetable kingdom. Instinct, at 

 this time, impels the animals to seek a safe place 

 for their period of rest. The bat hides itself in dark 

 caves, or in walls of decayed buildings. The hedge- 



hog envelopes himself in leaves, and generally con- 

 ceals himself in fern-brakes. Hamsters and marmots 

 bury themselves in the ground, and the jumping- 

 mouse of America encloses itself in a ball of clay. 

 At the same time, these singular animals roll them- 

 selves together in such a way tliat the extremities 

 are protected against cold, and the abdominal intes- 

 tines, and even the windpipe, are compressed, so that 

 the circulation of the blood is checked. Many of 

 them, especially the gnawers, as the hamster and 

 Nonvay rat, collect, previously to their period of 

 sleep, considerable stores of food, on which thay pro- 

 bably live until sleep overpowers them. In this pe- 

 riod we observe in Uie animals, first a decrease of ani- 

 mal heat, which, in the case of some, is diminished 

 2O>, with others, 40 to 5O> Fahrenheit; yet it is 

 always higher than the temperature of the atmosphere 

 in the winter montlis. If these animals are waked 

 during winter, they soon recover their natural warmth, 

 and his artificial awaking does not injure them. 



Secondly, animals in the dormant state breathe much 

 slower and more interruptedly than at other times. 

 Some will remain even a quarter of an hour without 

 any respiration; and animals in this state seldom 

 breathe more than once in a minute. Hence they 

 corrupt the surrounding air much less than if their 

 respiration was free. Of course, the heart moves 

 proportionally slow. With the hamster, it only beats 

 fifteen times a minute, whilst, in a waking state, it 

 beats 1 15 times a minute. The irritability of the 

 animals is very low ; and hamsters in this state 

 have been dissected, wljich only now and then gasped 

 for air, or, at least, opened the mouth; and on which 

 sulphuric acid, put on their intestines, had little or 

 no effect. Marmots can be awakened only by pow- 

 erful electric shocks. The digestion is also dimin- 

 ished ; the stomach and intestines are usually empty ; 

 and, even if the animals are awakened, they do not 

 manifest symptoms of appetite, except in heated 

 rooms. The causes of the dormant state of animals 

 have generally been sought in a peculiar construc- 

 tion ol the organs. It is true, that the veins in such 

 animals are usually much wider and larger than in 

 others ; hence the arteries can exert comparatively 

 little activity. The great vena cava also not merely 

 opens into the right auricle of the heart, but divides 

 itself into two considerable branches ; and the thy- 

 mus gland, which, in the foetus, is so large, is also 

 very extensive in this species of animals. The im- 

 mediate cause, however, producing this torpidity, is 

 mostly, if not entirely, the cold. The animals of this 

 species fall into this sleep in the middle of summer, 

 it they are exposed to a cold temperature ; on the 

 other hand, they remain awake during winter, if they 

 are brought, towards autumn, into a warm room. 

 Yet they fell asleep if the heating of the room is dis- 

 continued for some time. In the case of some of 

 them, confined air produces the sleep ; thus a ham- 

 ster may be made to sleep very easily, if it is put into 

 a vessel which is buried deep under ground. 

 Among the birds, some of the swallows are subject to 

 a similar sleep. The swift (hirundo apus) is not only 

 found in the crevices of walls, but also in morasses, 

 in a dormant state, during winter ; and many have 

 concluded from this that all swallows pass the winter 

 in this state, which is incorrect, as they are known 

 to be birds of passage. Most probably those swal- 

 lows which have been found in a dormant state, 

 were prevented from emigrating by accident, and 

 became torpid in their retreat, through cold. In a 

 similar way, young cuckoos have been found torpid 

 in the water, though this state is by no means natural 

 to them. With frogs and other amphibious reptiles, 

 the dormant state is very commcn. As soon as the 

 temperature of the atmosphere sinks under 50 Fall 



