108 CURIOUS HOMES AND THEIR TENANTS. 



would spring vertically upward in an odd, mechan- 

 ical manner, not unlike the hopping of a flea. On 

 the third day it found a grave in a pickle bottle." 



ANIMALS THAT SLEEP THROUGH THE 

 WINTER, 



AND ANIMALS THAT SLEEP THROUGH THE SUMMER. 



Every animal inhabiting the colder regions of the 

 earth is taught by instinct how to avoid the severity 

 of winter. Birds, of course, take the air line for re- 

 gions nearer the equator, and in a few days have ex- 

 changed arctic or antarctic storms for lands where 

 *' summer sings and never dies " ; but mammals who 

 can never quit thp regions in which they are born 

 either seek out holes and caverns and remain there, 

 living upon such stores of provisions as, taught by the 

 game instinct, or, in other words, by their Creator, they 

 have collected during the milder season of the year, 

 or sink into a deep sleep and a long one — so long, in 

 fact, that they do not arise for many months, until 

 Spring visits their abode again and awakens them 

 with the warmth of her perfumed breath. 



During this sleep, life, reduced to its lowest ebb, is 

 scarcely to be detected in the feeble pulsations of the 

 heart, and breathing so slow that through months of 

 this deathlike sleep the breath is drawn less fre- 

 quently than during a couple of days of active waking 

 life ; and the fat which the abundance of summer has 



