44 JANUARY 



the daintiest and friendliest of all out little four-footed 

 animals what it feeds upon in winter, where it feeds, 

 or even whether it feeds at all. The area of unseasonable 

 hunger is wider than is altogether apparent and much 

 wider than the largess of our hospitality. 



This particular winter proved so mild (a word 

 beloved of hymn-writers and country gossips) that winter 

 sleep was often half abandoned. A good many creatures 

 are undecided sleepers. Their species has not made up 

 its mind whether it is the wiser plan to hibernate or not 

 to hibernate. Squirrels, both red and grey, and, I 

 believe, many rats and mice, perhaps shrews and voles, 

 certainly hive-bees, and blue-bottle flies, are wakeful or 

 sleeping more or less at the beck of the weather. We all 

 know that our bees consume stored food more or less in 

 direct ratio with the temperature : the lower the thermo 

 meter the fewer and smaller the meals. The insects cling 

 together in a contracted quietude that itself maintains 

 bodily wa-rmth. My own belief is that some of the birds, 

 especially perhaps wrens, which seek warmth and shelter 

 in little gangs, can forget their hunger in a sort of sleep ; and 

 exist for an indeterminate period, like bears and turtles 

 on their own fat, which naturally accumulates in autumn. 



By far the commonest and most active of our bats, 

 the little pipistrelle, abandoned his hibernation again and 

 again. He is often a light sleeper compared with other 

 bats, who, as a class, become more inanimate, and sink 

 their vitality lower than any other creatures* The pulse 

 slows and the natural heat is abated. Even the snails 

 behind their sealed doors are not nearer death in appear 

 ance and in symptoms. That January the pipistrelles were 

 to be seen patrolling for food at midday. Most people 

 noticed as a rare prodigy of the year the raids of the 

 rats, and less conspicuously of the mice, on any and 



