CHAP. IV ] 



.ESTIVATION OF FISHES. 



the accuracy of Hunter's opinion almost as strikingly 

 as accordances, since the same genera of animals that 

 hybernate in Europe, where extreme cold disarranges 

 their oeconomy, evince no symptoms of lethargy in the 

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

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

 the year round in India, where sustenance is uniform. 1 

 The Shrews of Ceylon (Sorex montanus and S. ferrugi- 

 neus of Kelaart)? like those at home, subsist upon insects, 

 but as they inhabit a region where the equable tempera- 

 ture admits of the pursuit of their prey at all seasons 

 of the year, unlike those of Europe, they never hyber- 

 nate. A similar observation applies to bats, which are 

 dormant during a northern winter when insects are rare, 

 but never become torpid in any part of the tropics. 

 The bear, in like 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, the 

 tortoise, which in Venezuela immerses itself in indurated 

 mud during the hot months shows no tendency to torpor 

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

 subject to hyberna^ion 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. Nor is it difficult to believe that 

 they can successfully undergo the one crisis when we 

 know beyond question that they may survive the other. 2 



Hot-water Fishes. Another incident is striking in 



1 Colonel SYKES has described in 

 the Entomological Trans, the opera- 

 tions of an ant in India which lays up 

 a store of hay against the rainy season. 



2 YAB.RELL, vol. i. p. 3(54, quotes 

 the authority of Dr. J. Hunter in his 

 Animal (Economy, that fish, "after 

 being frozen still retain so much 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 

 History, the story of a gold fish ( Cy- 

 primts auratus) which, together with 

 the water in a marble basin, was 

 frozen into one solid lump of ice, yet, 



