36 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 75. 



developing. At present there are few men 

 whose opinion on such a subject is worth any 

 thing, and the number constantly grows less. 

 The greatest difficulty partly expresses itself 

 in, and partly arises from, the multiplication of 

 societies which include specialists as members, 

 and specialties as the subjects of their discus- 

 sions. We no longer have much life in the old 

 academies, where men of diverse learning once 

 sought to give and receive the most varied teach- 

 ing. The geologists herd apart from the zoolo- 

 gists : and in zoology the entomologists have a 

 kingdom to themselves ; so have the ornithol- 

 ogists, the ichthyologists, and other students. 

 ' That is not my department,' is an excuse for 

 almost entire ignorance of any but one nar- 

 row field. If naturalists would recognize this 

 ' pigeon-holing,' not only of their work, but of 

 their interests, as an evil, we might hope to see 

 a betterment. Until they come to see how much 

 is denied them in this shutting-out of the broad 

 view of nature, there is no hope of any change. 

 Special societies will multiply ; men of this sort 

 of learning will understand their problems less 

 and less well ; until all science will be ' caviare 

 to the general,' even when the general includes 

 nearly all others beyond the dozen experts in 

 the particular line of research. 



The best remedy for this narrowing of the 

 scientific motive would be for each man of sci- 

 ence deliberately to devote himself, not to one, 

 but to two ideals ; i.e., thorough individual work 

 in some one field, and sound comprehension of 

 the work of his fellows in the wide domain of 

 learning, — not all learning, of course, for life 

 and labor have limits, but of selected fields. 

 In such a system there will be one society-life 

 meant for the promotion of special research, 

 and another meant for the broader and equally 

 commendable work of general comprehension. 



It is in a certain way unfortunate that inves- 

 tigation is to a great extent passing out of the 

 hands of teachers. This, too, is a part of the 

 subdivision work ; but it is in its general effects 

 the most unhappy part of it. As long as the 

 investigator is a teacher, he is sure to be kept 

 on a wider field than when he becomes a solitary 

 special worker in one department. 



The efforts now being made for the endow- 

 ment of research will, if successful, lead to a 

 still further tendency to limit the fields of sci- 

 entific labor. A better project would be to 

 keep that connection between inquny and ex- 

 position from which science has had so much 

 profit in by-gone times. 



HIBERNATION OF THE LOWER VER- 

 TEBRATES. 



In a recent article in Science, I gave the 

 details of a series of observations of the habit 

 of hibernation as it occurs among our mam- 

 mals, and endeavored to show that this habit 

 was not so fixed and regular as is commonly 

 supposed. 



When we come to study, in their native 

 haunts, our reptiles and other lower verte- 

 brates, it will be found that the same is true 

 of them also. For instance : the turtles, as a 

 class, are supposed to hibernate ; but this is 

 not strictly true of all of them. There are 

 nine species of these animals, more or less 

 abundant, in m} T neighborhood. One, the 

 common box-tortoise, is strictly terrene ; while 

 the others are either aquatic or semi-aquatic. 

 The box-tortoise more regularly and sj-stem- 

 atically hibernates than do any of the aquatic 

 species. After two or three hard frosts, it 

 burrows quite deeply into the earth, and seldom 

 quits its hiding-place until every vestige of 

 winter has disappeared. The appearance of 

 the box-tortoise is the best ' sign ' of settled 

 spring weather that I know, though it some- 

 times fails; but to assert that "tortoises 

 creep deep into the ground, so as to com- 

 pletely conceal themselves from view when a 

 severe winter is to follow," and that " the}^ go 

 down just far enough to protect the opening of 

 their shells " 1 when it is to be mild, is non- 

 sense. The water and mud turtles, of which 

 I have carefully studied eight species, appear, 

 on the approach of cold weather, to bury them- 

 selves deeply in the mud at the bottoms of 

 ponds and streams, and to remain there until 

 spring. This is the common impression ; and 

 a superficial glance at their haunts during the 

 winter seems confirmatory of it. Is it, how- 

 ever, strictly true of these turtles? The habit 

 of hibernating is at least affected very mate- 

 rially by the severity of the winter. Further- 

 more, in most ponds of an} T considerable 

 extent, frequented by turtles, there are sure to 

 be one or more deep holes wherein man}' of the 



1 Signal-service notes, No. ix. : Weather-proverbs. 1883. 



