L^' 



/ 



104 THE WINTER REST. 



drowsy condition. As to the reptiles, tlie common 

 tortoises, sold about the streets of London on 

 hand-bariows, and imported cliiefly from Greece 

 or the Levant, bury themselves deep in the ground 

 as autumn approaches, and only reappear in spring 

 when the juicy plants on wliich they feed are 

 once more pushing up their tender seedlings. Of 

 course the idea that they eat slugs and cock- 

 roaches, so sedulously encouuiged by their itiner- 

 ant venders, is but a playful myth; for in reality 

 the tortoise is as confirmed a vegetarian as Pro- 

 fessor Newman himself in perron. The common 

 newt also remains torpid in winter at tne bottom 

 of ponds and ditches, as the lizi.rd, the adder, the 

 snake, and the blindworm likewise do in their 

 sandy burrows. 



Thus it will be seen that a large part of the 

 animal life of cold countries in general remains en- 

 tirely suspended for a considerable period of the 

 year, all the creatures belonging to the above 

 species and to many others which we have not 

 enumerated being all at once sound asleep for 

 weeks together. The teeming woods and heaths 

 and uplands, which in summer abound everywhere 

 with the manifold signs and sounds of life, are 

 then silent, motionless, and abandoned. But still 

 more curious is the fact that many kinds of insects 

 have their whole specific life interrupted, as it 

 were, by the advent of winter, the entire race 



