2 THE RING OF NATURE 



the end or even the middle of winter, but the 

 beginning. 



It is the act of waking that runs the liquor out 

 of life's cup. The animal that remains sound asleep 

 is marvellously sustained with no perceptible ex- 

 penditure of fat. The woodman has knocked out 

 from an ash ' stowl ' a fat, cold dormouse, his head 

 tucked under his tail, stiff in that curled posture, 

 and without the faintest beat of the heart to signify 

 that he is alive. If I put him in a warm room he 

 will awake and be immediately hungry, but it 

 may be that if I put him into a cold chamber he 

 would wake up apparently not a day older ten 

 years hence. 



It is not possible, I suppose, that a dormouse 

 could survive in unbroken sleep a whole ice age, 

 and then wake to perpetuate its race in a new 

 tropical world. Rip van Winkle stories of that 

 sort cluster only round such cold-blooded creatures 

 as the toad. The fable of the toad in the solid 

 rock has not been authenticated, but an English 

 investigator has buried one in a closed vessel 

 underground, and dug it up alive at the end of 

 two years. The cold-blooded vertebrates, how- 

 ever, are good famishers even when awake, 

 some of the large snakes kept in zoos having 

 been known to go for upwards of a year without 

 food. 



It is the mildness of our winter that makes 

 it harder for the animals than the out-and-out 

 cold of Norway or the mountains of Switzerland. 



