48 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



hard to explain.' It is sensitive enough externally ; can 

 it be that it is immune internally ? When insects become 

 scarce, and the cold weather sets in, the horned lizards 

 burrow into the ground and pass into the coma of hiberna- 

 tion. Dr. Gadow makes the interesting note that if cap- 

 tive specimens are not allowed to hibernate, ' they will keep 

 on feeding through the winter, but in that case are sure to 

 die in the following spring'. 



We may leave the horned lizards in their winter sleep, 

 though without nearly exhausting their peculiarities. One 

 more may be mentioned, which, like the haemorrhage, well 

 deserves further study. Mr. Bryant has found that they 

 are very amenable to what looks like hypnosis. When a 

 specimen is rubbed on the top of the head and between the 

 eyes, it turns its head down, closes its eyes, and passes 

 into a stupor, in which it may remain for five or ten minutes. 

 But the observer was not quite sure whether what happened 

 was a faint, or a feint, or neither. It presents one of those 

 unsolved problems with which every study in Natural 

 History should begin and also end. 



Love -Scenes. — The interest of many a human drama 

 is in its love-afiairs — two men and a maid, two maids 

 with their hearts set on one man — such are the apparently 

 simple data from which a plot is evolved. And it is so 

 among animals also. We need not quibble about words ; 

 the love of the Argus pheasant showing off his hundred 

 eyes before his desired mate is doubtless very different 

 from the love of the stickleback coaxing and driving his 

 bride to the nest among the weeds, and both are very 

 different from our loves, but there is undoubtedly a com- 

 mon element. We must avoid the amiable error of 

 generosity — reading the man into the beast — but we must 



