ZAPUS I-IUDSONIUS. 
197 
hives of bees, in which they form for themselves, a warm and com- 
fortable habitation, having ingeniously scooped away some wax. 
The materials of its nest are fine dry grass, down of feathers, and 
old rags. It lives upon the honey, and seems to grow very fat 
upon it. I believe two individuals, a male and a female, commonly 
inhabit one hive. They sometimes devour the greater part of the 
honey of a hive. 
“ The circumstance just mentioned is not altogether uninterest- 
ing. It plainly proves what 1 have, long since, asserted, that the 
torpid state of animals is altogether ‘ an accidental circumstance,’ 
and by no means constitutes a specific character. The same 
species becomes torpid in one country and not in another. Nay, 
different individuals of the same species become torpid, or continue 
awake, in the same neighborhood, and even on the same farm.” * 
On the 6th of June, 1797, Major-General Thomas Davies pre- 
sented, before the Linnaean Society of London, “ An account of the 
Jumping Mouse of Canada,” which he supposed to be an unde- 
scribed species. This account was published in the Linnaean 
Transactions for 1798. Hence, though not read till more than a 
year and a half after Dr. Barton had presented his paper before 
the American Philosophical Society, it appeared in print before the 
publication of the latter. 
General Davies gives a figure of the animal in the dormant state, 
observing that the specimen “ was found by some workmen, in 
digging the foundation for a summer house, in a gentleman’s 
garden about two miles from Quebec, in the latter end of May, 
1787. It was discovered enclosed in a ball of clay, about the size 
of a cricket ball, nearly an inch in thickness, perfectly smooth 
within, and about twenty inches under ground. The man who 
first discovered it, not knowing what it was, struck the ball with 
his spade, by which means it was broken to pieces, or the ball also 
would have been presented to me. The drawing will perfectly 
* Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. VI, 1804, pp. 143-144. 
