DR. MARSHALL HALL ON HYBERNATION. 
345 
ing report of the experiment in a letter to Senebier : “ Vous vous ressouvien- 
drez de ma marmotte qui fut si fortement lethargique dans 1’hiver severe de 
1795 ; je la tins alors pendant quatre heures dans le gaz acide carbonique, le 
thermomktre marquant — 12°, elle continua de vivre dans ce gaz qui est le plus 
mortel de tous, comme je vous le disais : au moins un rat et un oiseau que j’y 
placai avec elle y perirent a l’instant meme. II parait done que sa respiration 
fut suspendue pendant tout ce tems-la. Je soumis a la meme experience des 
chauve-souris semblablement lethargiques, etle resultat fut le meme*.” 
A bat which was lethargic in an atmosphere of 36° was immersed in water 
of 41°. It moved about a little, and expelled bubbles of air from its lungs. 
It was kept in the water during sixteen minutes, and then removed. It ap- 
peared to be uninjured by the experiment. 
A hedgehog which had been so lethargic in an atmosphere of 40° as not to 
awake for food during several days, was immersed in water of 42°. It moved 
about and expelled air from its lungs. It was retained under the water during 
22^ minutes. It was then removed. It appeared uninjured. 
It seems probable that the motions observed in these animals were excited 
through the medium of the cutaneous nerves. 
The power of supporting the abstraction of oxygen gas, or atmospheric air, 
belongs solely to the hybernating state, and is no property of the hybernating 
animal in its state of activity. After having found that the dormant bat, in 
summer, supported immersion in water, during eleven minutes, uninjured, I 
was anxious to know whether the active hedgehog possessed the same power. 
I immersed one of these animals in water. It expired in three minutes, the 
period in which immersion proves fatal to the other mammalia. Sir Anthony 
Carlisle has, therefore, committed an error, somewhat similar to that of M. 
Edwards, when he asserts that “ animals of the class Mammalia, which hyber- 
nate and become torpid in winter, have at all times a power of subsisting under 
a confined respiration, which would destroy other animals not having this pe- 
culiar habit -j-.” The power of bearing a suspended respiration is an induced 
state. It depends upon sleep or lethargy themselves, and their effect in im- 
* Mdmoires sur la Respiration, par Lazare Spallanzani, traduits en Frangais, d’apr&s son manu~ 
scrit inddit; par Jean Senebier: p. 75. 
t Phil. Trans. 1805, p. 17. 
