ON ANIMAL LIFE. 
159 
from its mother, its temperature falls considerably, and con¬ 
tinues falling, until, in the course of three or four hours, it stops 
at a very few degrees above that of the surrounding air.' 
“ This effect cannot be occasioned by the want of food for so 
short a time; and even though it were, the difference in this 
respect between young and adult animals would be no less re¬ 
markable : but the temperature begins to fall as soon as the 
separation takes place, and the diminution is not in the least 
retarded by furnishing the young animal with milk from time to 
time. The same phenomenon takes place with kittens and rab¬ 
bits.”— Pp. 68, 69. 
“If we examine the change which the temperature undergoes 
in the process of life, we shall find at first but little alteration ; 
after a while the diminution will take place more slowly ; then 
the limit to its descent will be gradually higher and higher in 
the scale, till, at the end of about a fortnight, it will maintain 
itself at a degree nearly equal to that of the adult animal.”— 
P. 69. 
The phenomena above-mentioned are not, however, common 
to the young of all the mammalia. The heat of young guinea- 
pigs, born when the temperature of the air is between 10® and 
20® cent, or 50® and 68® Fahr., in the above experiments, will be 
found to be nearly as great as that of adults; and if they be 
separated under the same circumstances, it is not diminished. 
The same is true of many other animals of this class.”—P. 70. 
It is so with all our patients, except those of the genera 
Canis and Felis. Dr. Edwards connects this with a curious 
circumstance. 
“ Corresponding with this difference, is a distinction deducible 
from the state of the eyes. Some are born with the eyes closed, 
others with the eyes open. The temperature of the former, 
according to the foregoing experiments, rises successively; and 
at the end of a fortnight (which is the period when the eyes 
open) it is nearly equal to that of adults. Thus, the state of 
the eyes, though having no immediate connection with the pro¬ 
duction of heat, may yet coincide with an internal structure in¬ 
fluencing that function ; and certainly furnishes signs which 
serve to indicate a remarkable change in this respect, since, at 
the period of their opening their eyes, all young mammalia have 
nearly the same temperature as adults.”—P. 70. 
Should we not add, that there appears here a wfse and kind 
provision of nature, in depriving of sight, and thus the power of 
wandering from the comfortable bed and fostering warmth of the 
mother, those in whom the power of producing heat is small at 
birth; and giving not only the power of but the incentive to 
