UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 



iave their stems very seldom injured. Most of 

 the herbaceous plants lose their stalks, though 

 their roots remain alive ; and some revive at the 

 return of spring even after their roots have been 

 frozen. 



Ants and flies, and many other insects, fall 

 asleep in a very slight degree of cold. Dormice, 

 also, and other animals of the same class, appear 

 as if life was suspended for several months during 

 cold weather, so much so that their heart ceases 

 to beat. The snail and the toad undergo the 

 same stupefying effect, and serpents can be 

 frozen so as to become brittle ; if they are broken 

 in that state, they die, but if left in their holes, 

 intowhich the warmth of spring penetrates slowly, 

 they recover. It is in the season when their food 

 begins to fail, and the fruits which fattened them 

 disappear, that these creatures conceal them- 

 selves in order to submit to this wise law of na- 

 ture. Those that are deprived of food by the 

 snow covering the ground, sleep till it melts. 

 The white bear lives on the sea shore in summer, 

 and on islands of ice in autumn, and he does 

 not fall asleep till the ice, being thickened and 

 raised too high above the water, is no longer the 

 resort of his chief prey, the seal. His means of 

 obtaining food continuing longer, a much severer 

 cold is requisite to deaden in him the call of 

 seeking it, than in the black bear who devours 

 vegetables j or than in the brown bear who lives 



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