DORMICE, THEIR HYBERNATION. 
397 
bined experiments of Naturalists will not solve the 
point, presenting as they do, such inconclusive re¬ 
sults, and so many anomalies. How, for instance, 
can we account for dormice becoming torpid in 
confinement at a temperature which at other times 
would not have affected them, and at which perhaps 
they would have been active in their wild state ? 
How also is it to be explained that dormice in 
confinement during winter, so habitually wake up 
to eat at night, and fall profoundly asleep each day ? 
Spallanzani thought it might depend on the return¬ 
ing periodical calls of hunger, but yet he himself 
reports that his dormice became thoroughly lethar¬ 
gic in the month of March on the return of cold, 
which however could not have been greater, if as 
great, as during winter, and I have myself had them 
brought to me in the end of February in their tor¬ 
pid state, when the weather has been particularly 
mild, and on which occasions they have not re¬ 
mained awake after being roused. 
So far indeed from experiments such as have 
been made, being useful to throw light on this sub¬ 
ject of causes, we may rather consider it premature to 
enter on that question while it yet remains unsettled 
whether these animals ever venture forth to feed 
during winter from the time they first retire, to the 
period of their permanent re-appearance. I have 
taken the authority of Bingley for stating that they 
come forth to feed on sunny days during winter, 
but there are several Naturalists who hold a diffe¬ 
rent opinion, and though the general tendency of 
the experiments and observations that have been 
made, would seem to shew that naturally they are 
wholly under the influence of weather as regards 
their torpidity, I have never been able to get any 
account of their being seen abroad from autumn 
till the milder parts of April. Possibly we may 
conclude that after the warmth of spring has been 
