HIBERNATION. 



This remarkable habit of adaptation possessed by some 

 animals has been from time immemorial a kind of 

 mystery, and notwithstanding all that has been written 

 upon this siibjeot, there still appears but little really 

 known or understood about it. In a very elaborate 

 treatise published in the Gyclopmdia of Anatomy and 

 Physiology, by Dr. Marshall Hall, many facts well known to 

 the practical naturalist are altogether omitted, and state- 

 ments made that are certainly unsupported by careful 

 well-conducted experiments. 



It is, for instance, stated at page 765, " The direct effect 

 of cold on the animal frame is, as I shall shortly have 

 occasion to state particularly, totally different from hiber- 

 nation. Hibernation is a physiological condition ; the 

 direct effect of cold or torpor is, on the contrary, a patho- 

 logical and generally a fatal one." 



Now the above does not appear to be a correct view of 

 the subject, for it cannot be denied that the temperature 

 alone has more influence upon hibernating animals than 

 any other cause, unless we refer to the mud fish of Africa 

 {Lepidosiren), that hibernate all the dry season ; but this 

 is a totally different state of hibernation, to which we 

 shall again refer. Again at page 767, " To walk over the 

 floor, to touch the table, is sufficient, in many instances, 

 to reproduce respiration and to frustrate the experiment." 



It is quite evident from the above that the animals 



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