112 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



maintenance of a degree of temperature con- 

 ducing to a peculiar condition of the system, 

 without involving the loss of the vital prin- 

 ciple. 



Most mammalia hybernate in solitude ; some, 

 however, pass the winter in company. Families 

 of marmots and of hamsters associate in one 

 chamber. Bats generally hybernate in clusters 

 huddled together in their dark recess, and 

 thereby, perhaps, maintain an atmosphere 

 around them somewhat higher than that of the 

 wintry wind, as it sweeps over the open country. 

 Hybernating animals are always sheltered from 

 the influence of cutting winds, which reduce 

 the bodily temperature, and tend to the 1 destruc- 

 tion of life, much more rapidly than would be 

 effected by the simple depression of atmospheric 

 temperature, the air being in a state of quies- 

 cence. In the former case, the abstraction of 

 caloric from the body takes place with fearful 

 rapidity. There are two conditions of hyber- 

 nation, namely, perfect and imperfect, to which 

 we may here allude ; but there is a third kind 

 of hybernation, giving full latitude to the word, 

 unconnected with sleep, and yet necessary for 

 the preservation of life. 



In our country the insectivorous hedgehog 

 affords a familiar specimen of perfect torpidity 

 — the dormouse of imperfect torpidity. " The 

 hybernation of the hedgehog," says Mr. Bell, 

 " is perhaps as complete as that of any animal 

 inhabiting this country, and much more so 

 than that of many of the Modentia, (dormouse, 



