BROKEN SLUMBER 435 



Gilbert White, can imagine a swallow moping through 

 the winter in a hibernaculum ? It is only the four- 

 footed animals, and the wonderfully exceptional bee 

 among winged things, that carry the carnal delights 

 of hoarding to the length of making it a source of 

 winter revel. 



The reptiles are good sleepers. Their cold blood 

 could not be moved to action by the warmest winter 

 sun. Nothing short of the piercing rays of late April 

 appears grateful to the grass-snake. His winter begins 

 as soon as September is gone, and for him the ther- 

 mometer thereafter only sinks farther and farther 

 below zero. Secure in the fastness of some distant 

 hedgerow or dry wall, the viper and the grass-snake 

 never make a sensation by coming forth in the middle 

 of winter. The slow-worm, on the other hand, equally 

 a creature of the sun, does for some reason sometimes 

 make the mistake of coming out to die on the frozen 

 road. In a church not far away, many newts, both 

 crested and smooth, are resting in the masonry, 

 awaiting the call of the warming ponds in spring. 

 For a Sunday or two, their sleep was so light that, 

 when the church was warmed and the service well 

 under weigh, they came out one by one into the aisle, 

 much to the amusement of the children and the em- 

 barrassment of more nervous people. So do the bats 

 stir in the high rafters, for, against all reason, the bat 

 is, with us, one of the lightest of sleepers, coming out 

 again and again as the winter wears, consuming avast 

 deal of energy in the chase of apparently non-existent 

 insects. Even to stir in your sleep is to use up the food 

 in your tissues. What a fearful draught must be made 

 by the opening of all the tubes to the keen air of 



