Chap. IV J 



.ESTIVATION OF FISHES. 



223 



the accuracy of Hunter's opinion almost as strikingly as 

 accordances, since tlie same genera of animals which 

 hybernate in Europe, wliere extreme cold disarranges 

 their ceconomy, evince no symptoms of lethargy in the 

 tropics, provided their food be not diminished by the heat. 

 Ants, wliich are torpid in Europe during winter, work all 

 the year round in India, wdiere sustenance is uniform.^ 

 The Shrews of Ceylon [Sorex montaiius and S. ferrugi- 

 neus of Kelaart) which, like those at home, subsist upon 

 insects, inhabit a region where the equable tempera- 

 ture admits of the pursuit of their prey at all seasons 

 of the year ; and hence, unlike those of Europe, they 

 never hybernate. A similar observation applies to tlie 

 bats, wdiich are dormant during a northern winter when 

 insects are rare, but never become torpid in any part of • 

 the tropics. 



Tlie bear, in Hke manner, is nowhere deprived of its 

 activity except when the rigour of severe frost cuts off 

 its access to its accustomed food. On the other hand, tlie 

 tortoise, which immerses itself in indurated mud during 

 the hot months in Venezuela, shows no tendency to torpor 

 in Ceylon, where its food is permanent ; and yet is subject 

 to hybernation when carried to the colder regions of 

 Europe. 



To the fish in the detached tanks and pools when the 

 heat, by exhausting the water, deprives them at once 

 of motion and sustenance, the practical effect must be 

 the same as when the frost of a northern winter 

 encases them in ice. JSTor is it difficult to believe that 

 they can successfully undergo the one crisis when we 

 know beyond question that they may survive the 

 other. ^ 



^ Colonel Stkes has described in 

 the Entomoloi/ical Trans, the opera- 

 tions of an ant which laid np a store 

 of hay against the rainy season. 



^ Yarrell, vol. i. p. 364, quotes 

 the authority of Dr. J. Hunter in his 

 Animal (Econoniif, that fish, " after 

 being frozen still retain so nuich of 



life as when thawed to resume their 

 vital actions ;" and in the same volume 

 (Introd. vol. i. p. xvii.) he relates 

 from Jesse's Gleanings in Natural 

 Ilistori/, the story of a gold fish {C'l/- 

 jyrinus airratus) which, together with 

 the water in a marble basin, was 

 frozen into one solid lump of ice, yet, 



