WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 



state with that of the highly favoured of our race, whose 

 sleeping apartments possess every comfort, have all the 

 requirements necessary to a sanitary condition that an 

 enlightened nation can imagine, and yet he sleeps not, or 

 if he do, it is so imperfectly that all the hours required to 

 rest an exhausted frame are either wakeful or dreaming. 



It would be esteemed by many of our species as a great 

 boon could they sleep quietly through the cold and gloomy 

 season of the year without having to encounter a few 

 difficulties which would ine^dtably present themselves to 

 their so doing. As a preparatory measure they would 

 have to undergo the process during the summer and 

 autumn months of laying up a store of fat, to which those 

 who have no desire to become obese would object. Again, 

 they would have to be prepared to settle all accounts 

 previous to retiring to their winter quarters ; and much 

 difficulty would be experienced in keeping out of the reach 

 of those who appear "wide awake under every circum- 

 stance." Consequently many endless disadvantages would 

 be attendant upon a torpid state of being, had such been 

 allotted to our kind. 



But to creatures that could not exist in an active state 

 during the cold season, it is of immense importance that 

 they are endowed with the habit of fasting and sleeping 

 during that time. The different animals that are able to 

 live, for lengthened periods, without food, are worthy of 

 remark. Among mammalia we have bats, hedgehogs, 

 bears, marmots, squirrels, dormice, and many others, which 

 possess that power, although varying much in the time, 

 the duration of which depends upon the temperature. No 

 kind of bird, however, hibernates, or can live in a torpid 

 state. 



Some species wake up occasionally on warm sunny days 

 in hard winter and take a meal, and again retire to " sleep 



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