HYBERNATION. 123 



torpidity ; or to seclusion without torpidity in 

 the female ; but with more or less torpidity, or, 

 on the contrary, with full activity, without 

 seclusion, in the male. 



Man himself hybcrnates. In the high Polar 

 regions he retires to his winter hut, suspends 

 all out-of-door employments, hangs up his fish- 

 ing-spears, closes the apertures of his hut or 

 den, lights his lamps of train oil, clothes him- 

 self in a furry vestment, feeds upon the coarse 

 (and to us disgusting) produce of the summer's 

 fishery or chase, and, unexcited by the inspira- 

 tion of intellect, slumbers away the greater 

 portion of the dreary season, till roused by the 

 advance of spring, he issues forth to engage in 

 necessary toil, and encounter inevitable danger. 



But we must here revert to the condition of 

 those animals which hybernate in decidedly 

 torpid quiescence. 



We have said that extreme cold, in the case 

 of hybernating animals, does not produce torpi- 

 dity, but death. Torpidity is latent life — death 

 is the extinction of life. Torpidity may con- 

 tinue, as in the seeds of plants, or in animal- 

 cules, dried up for an unknown number of 

 years, but death has not taken place. Thus, 

 then, the torpid hedgehog or dormouse, dead as 

 it may appear, will revive ; but if exposed to 

 extreme cold it dies, and no revivification will 

 take place, for its death is real, not apparent. 

 If we expose an animal, which naturally becomes 

 torpid at a certain season of the year, to exces- 

 sive cold, and allow it no opportunity of shelter- 



