218 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 
to sleep for the whole winter. He takes no 
food all that time, but he is not moving, his 
breathing is very slow, and his heart beats very 
slowly and feebly, so he is not spending much 
energy. Life is at a very low ebb, and what 
waste there is, for there can be no life without 
some waste, is made good at the expense of the 
coat of fathe putoninautumn. Notmuch fresh 
air gets into his hiding-place, so the carbonic 
Fic. 25.—Spiny ANT-EATER (ECHIDNA). 
A primitive egg-laying Mammal. The egg is placed in a 
skin-pocket, where it develops. The Spiny Ant-eater 
illustrates winter sleep. 
acid gas given off by his feeble breathing 
hangs like a poison cloud all round him and 
helps to keep him in his heavy stupor. An 
animal in this state has often been compared 
to a fire which has been well built and then 
banked up and allowed to become choked with 
its own ashes. Hardly any heatis given off, but 
as long as a red glow remains in the centre of 
