83 ' JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



mouse, flying- squirrel, bat, chipmunk and marmot, and per- 

 haps muskrat. 



The porcupine and otter that had scarcely any hyber- 

 nating instincts have been exterminated from the earlier set- 

 tled districts of Ontario. 



The somewhat ungainly rodent, the marmot, arctomys 

 monax (that seems half way between a squirrel and a guinea 

 pig), holds its ground well, despite the extensive changes 

 brought about by land clearing. Does the arctomys instinct 

 of four or five months' somnolenc}' evince a lingering relic 

 of the reptile in its constitution? People who have kept the 

 groundhog as a pet say that arctomys almost invariably re- 

 tires to frost-Droof burrow as soon as the early autumnal 

 frosts have killed the tenderest wild plants, that are the choice 

 food of this herbivorous rodent, such as the desmodiums, 

 vetches and other leguminosse, and to the list may be added 

 some of the convolvulaceae, as the pumpkin vine leaves, of 

 which the quadruped is inordinately fond, and their obese 

 state in September, seem to induce sluggishness and som- 

 nolency. 



A bis" curve of their vital orbit has been outlined and 

 travelled through, and the other portion, as indicated by the 

 calendar, is lived out, as it were, "below the horizon." The 

 limits seem to be a set time, for some individuals emerge 

 from the winter trance state early in March, whilst the 

 ground is vet snow-laden and suitable food must be far harder 

 to come at than when the lotus-like forgetfulness came over 

 them ; these aberrant individuals, who thus (in appearance) 

 inopportunelv wake up, seem to have "slipped a few cogs" in 

 the cataleptic clockwork, but they manage to live on by 

 nibbling the buds of low shrubs and the bark of small saplings, 

 and, like the experimentary 2nd February bear mood, add 

 "a codicil" extension to the hybernating term. It has been 

 noticed that the marmots have sometimes some of the bodily 

 fat remaining when spring conies, but that they rapidly be- 

 come thin on resuming active life and fulfilling mating in- 

 stincts before even all the snows have disappeared. 



