WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 
state with that of the highly favoured of our race, whose 
sleeping apartments possess every comfort, have all the 
requirements necessary to a sanitary condition that an 
enlightened nation can imagine, and yet he sleeps not, or 
if he do, it is so imperfectly that all the hours required to 
rest an exhausted frame are either wakeful or dreaming. 
It would be esteemed by many of our species as a great 
boon could they sleep quietly through the cold and gloomy 
season of the year without having to encounter a few 
difficulties which would inevitably present themselves to 
their so doing. As a preparatory measure they would 
have to undergo the process during the summer and 
autumn months of laying up a store of fat, to which those 
who have no desire to become obese would object. Again, 
they would have to be prepared to settle all accounts 
previous to retiring to their winter quarters ; and much 
difficulty would be experienced in keeping out of the reach 
of those who appear “ wide awake under every circum- 
stance.” Consequently many endless disadvantages would 
be attendant upon a torpid state of being, had such been 
allotted to our kind. 
But to creatures that could not exist in an active state 
during the cold season, it is of immense importance that 
they are endowed with the habit of fasting and sleeping 
during that time. The different animals that are able to 
live, for lengthened periods, without food, are worthy of 
remark. Among mammalia we have bats, hedgehogs, 
bears, marmots, squirrels, dormice, and many others, which 
possess that power, although varying much in the time, 
the duration of which depends upon the temperature. No 
kind of bird, however, hibernates, or can live in a torpid 
state. 
Some species wake up occasionally on warm sunny days 
in hard winter and take a meal, and again retire to “ sleep 
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