58 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



the body, and becomes thick and sleek, as is needful when we 

 consider the task which it has to perform. 



During the three months of her seclusion, the Polar Bear takes 

 no food, but exists upon the store of fat which has been accumu- 

 lated before retiring to her winter home. A similar phenomenon 

 may be observed in many of the hibernating animals, but in the 

 Bear it is more remarkable from the fact that she has not only to 

 support her own existence, but to impart nourishment to her off- 

 spring. It is true, that in order to enable them to find sufficient 

 food, they are of wonderfully small dimensions when compared 

 with the parent ; but the fact remains, that the animal is able to 

 lay up within itself so large a store of nutriment that it can main- 

 tain its own life and suckle its young for a space of three months 

 without taking a morsel of food. 



It is worthy of notice, also, that in the Bears of the Old as 

 well as the New World, is found the curious phenomenon of the 

 " tappen," a hard concreted substance, which plugs up the intes- 

 tine, and seems to be of service in retaining the animal in condi- 

 tion. In Scandinavia, where the Bears of both sexes retire to 

 winter quarters, and remain in their hidden recesses for five full 

 months, the tappen is very seldom cast until the animal leaves 

 its den. In the rare instances where such an event has hap- 

 pened, the Bear is said to have become miserably thin and weak. 

 Full particulars of the tappen and the hibernating habits of the 

 Brown Bear may be found in Lloyd's " Field Sports of Northern 

 Europe." 



There are other animals which burrow under the snow, 

 though they do so for the sake of finding food, and not of form- 

 ing a habitation. Several of the Arvicolse, or field-mice of North 

 America, are in the habit of driving long tunnels under the snow 

 in search of food, and are so successful in this curious mode of 

 foraging that they in general become quite fat during the winter 

 months, when every green leaf has fallen, and every herb is cov- 

 ered with a thick mantle of snow. 



From a work of this character, so remarkable an animal as 

 the Pichiciago ought not to be omitted. Its scientific name is 

 Chlamyphorus truncatus, and is very happily chosen, as will pres- 

 ently be seen. 



The Pichiciago is not larger than an ordinary mole, and in its 



