106 THE WINTER REST. 



larvae in their cocoons that slumber peacefully 

 through the inclement season, emerging in the 

 full-winged state as soon as the warm weather has 

 fairly set in again. As for snails and other mol- 

 lusks, they close the mouths of their shells with a 

 slimy wall or partition, creep into crannies of rock 

 or holes in walls, and spend a drowsy Christmas 

 after their own fashion in uninterrupted somno- 



i lence. Altogether it would probably be not far 

 from the truth if we were to estimate that from 

 November to March nine-tenths of the sjjecies of 

 animals, great and small, indigenous to New Eng- 



-<( land or to the British Islands are all coujfortably 

 asleep together, either in the adult form, the egg^ 

 or the chrysalis. In every case, when animals are ) 

 hibernating, the action of the heart and lungs \ 

 almost ceases, and the small amount of vital ) 

 activity that still remains is carried on at the \ 

 ex})ense of the stored-up material already laid by / 

 in the creature's own body. Hence they usually ] 

 go to sleep extremely fat, and wake up again the / 

 succeeding year lean, skinny, and voraciously \ 

 hungry. 



Plants go through stages exactly analogous in 

 all these respects to those undergone by animals. 

 Certain annuals, the equivalents of the plant-lice 

 and other insects which survive through the win- 

 ter in the egg form alone, sow their seeds in early 

 autumn, and die out entirely themselves during 



