Incubation and Hybernation. 367 



cleaves off. This is called, by hunters, " the velvet state." During 

 this period, and to the time the horn attains its full growth, being 

 about two months, the induration increases with surprising rapidity. 



Incubation, 8fc. 



There seems to be, in the animal economy, a wonderful adapta- 

 tion of the animal itself to its exigencies ; and also a coincidence, 

 equally surprising, in all the attending circumstances necessary to the 

 main design. — The turkey hen, toward the close of her incubation, 

 has frequently been known to continue on her eggs, without inteVmis- 

 siouj for seven days, and in some instances nine, without food or 

 nourishment of any kind. She becomes greatly emaciated indeed, 

 but animal life is not extinct, whereas had she been confined, under 

 any other circumstances, and without nourishment, but for five or six 

 days, she must have perished by starvation. No excrementitious 

 matter is ever found either in or by her nest. Hence, it is evident, 

 that during the term of her incubation, the action of the digestive 

 organs, if it be not nearly or wholly suspended, must be, in a great 

 measure under the control of the bird. It is also a fact, observed 

 by many, that the turkey cock, when his hen commences her incu- 

 bation, often leaves her society and retires to an obscure and lonely 

 station, usually in the corner of a fence, surrounded by a thick growth 

 of weeds, and there sits on the ground three or four weeks, taking 

 no other food than what he can reach in his sitting posture. The 

 moulting season with turkies, is about the usual time of incubation ; 

 and perhaps this may have some influence in his retirement. 



Hybernation of the Racoon, (Procyon Lotor, L.,) and Woodchuck, 

 (Arctomys Monax, Gmel.) 



In our latitude, the racoon and woodchuck who lay up no food 

 for their winter stock, hybernate in dens among rocks, and in deep 

 burrows, below frost. The former, it is true, sometimes in February, 

 taking advantage of a thaw and short term of warm weather, sallies 

 forth from his winter quarters for a night or two, although never in 

 pursuit of food ; but the latter is awakened from his repose only by 

 the return of confirmed warm weather. — I am credibly informed that 

 the late Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth, of Hartford, with a view to ex- 

 periment, procured a young woodchuck to be petted at his house. 

 Upon the approach of winter, the animal, impelled by instinct, took 

 up his abode for hybernation behind a row of casks in the cellar, — 

 not by burrowing in the ground, but by making for himself a small 



