FOOD. 83 



wliich feed on insects in summer, could not, in this country, 

 obtain a suitable supply of food. Yet the race is preserved, 

 since the same fall of temperature, which is destructive to 

 insect-life, brings on their winter-torpor. 



With many quadrupeds, however, and evert insects, 

 especially the bee, where migration to more fertile districts 

 is impracticable, and where torpidity is not congenial to 

 the constitution *, there is an instinctive disposition to be 

 provident of futurity, — to subject themselves to much la- 

 bour, during the autumn, when the bounties of nature are 

 scattered so profusely, in heaping up a treasure for sup- 

 plying the deficiencies of a winter, of whose accompanying 

 privations, the young, at least, are ignorant. The quadru- 

 peds which possess this storing inclination are all phytivor- 

 ous, and belong to the natural tribe of gnaxoers. 



Of all those animals, whose industry in collecting and 

 wisdom in preserving a winter-store, have attracted the no- 

 tice of mankind, the beaver stands pre-eminently conspicu^ 

 ous. The number of individuals which unite, in cutting 

 do^vn timber to supply their storehouse, and the regularity 

 with which they dispose of it, in order to make it serve the 

 double purpose of food and shelter, are equally calculated 

 to excite astonishment. But as we rather wish to confine 

 our remarks to British animals, wherever the subject will 

 permit, we select as an example of this kind of storing pro- 

 pensity, the common squirrel, {Sciurus vulgaris.) This 



Archibald Campbell, we are told, that the lake called Lochow, about 20 

 miles in length, and 3 miles in breadth, " abounds with plenty of the finest 

 salmon ; and, what is uncoinmon, the seal comes uji from the ocean, through 

 a very rapid river, in quest of this fish, and retires to the sea at the approach 

 of winter." — Stat. Ace. vol. vi. p. 260. 



• Some animals, as the field-mouse, even lay up a small stock of provi- 

 sion on which to subsist, previous to torpiditj', and in the intervals of revi- 

 viscence. 



F 2 



