676 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Nov. 29, 1913. 
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TARPON, TUNA and ALL SOUTHERN TACKLE 
28 
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(Continued from page 675.) 
Sing was not to be balked by these tactics, and 
made life miserable for that particular cottontail 
until he left the weeds and started across the pas¬ 
ture at his best speed. George was on guard in 
the pasture, and took a long shot, but the rabbit 
never paused and flew like a streak for the brush 
and passed out of sight over the hill. Sing came 
along on the trail and when she reached the edge 
of the brush stopped and came back to us. We 
went to where the hound stopped and found the 
rabbit stone dead, a shot having passed through 
its body. 
We quit in the middle of the afternoon, with 
ten rabbits. Hitched up the horse, finished the 
lunch and the coffee, and started for home. The 
weather was mild, the road had dried and we 
jogged comfortably on our way. The tired dog 
curled up on the robe at our feet, there was con¬ 
tent in our souls over a good day, and we were 
at peace with the world. 
Minnesota Notes. 
(From our Field Correspondent.) 
Grand Rapids, Minn.— One of the largest 
fish ever taken from Itasca county waters was 
captured last night at Pokegama lake by Louis 
Quale and J. O. Johnson. It was a muscallonge 
and weighed seventy-one pounds. The big fellow 
had become entangled in a net for whitefish set 
out by the fishermen and put up a stubborn fight. 
Specimens of this species of fish weighing thirty- 
five pounds are not unusual, but this is the larg¬ 
est of which any report can be found. 
Winter Sleepers. 
BY W. R. GILBERT. 
Everyone knows that great changes are 
wrought in bird life by the advent of winter. 
But the birds are not the only creatures which 
are thus affected, for bats, reptiles, fishes and 
a host of more lowly types are profoundly in¬ 
fluenced thereby. They, however, behave in a 
totally different manner by way of response to 
the stimulus of cold. For, as everybody knows, 
they fall into a deep sleep, or “hibernate.” It 
is generally supposed that this is a device 
adopted only by creatures which cannot migrate, 
though our forebears believed that the birds were 
no exception to this rule, and many circum¬ 
stantial accounts of swallows dredged up whole¬ 
sale from the bottom of ponds in midwinter are 
to be met with in the older works on natural 
history, all of which, of course, are vouched for 
by eye witnesses. Now that we know that such 
records have no foundation in fact, we are apt 
to express something akin to amazement that 
anyone should ever have believed such tales. 
But really this is a little unreasonable. There 
is no a priori reason why birds should not hiber¬ 
nate, as indeed is shown by the fact that bats 
and bears, dormice and squirrels, to mention only 
a few of many instances, habitually hibernate; 
and these, it must be remembered, belong to a 
higher order of creation than the birds. It is 
generally argued that the birds migrate because 
they can escape the rigors of winter best by 
migration, whereas squirrels and dormice are 
prisoners within these realms. But this cannot 
be the sole reason, for the bats could as easily 
migrate as the birds, yet the fact remains that 
they do not. Instead, they pass into a state of 
coma which can be prolonged for an almost in¬ 
definite period by keeping the sleeper in, say, an 
icehouse. Why do they not also seek the con¬ 
genial warmth of Africa, and return with the 
spring? 
In some animals, such as the dormouse and 
the tortoise, this winter sleep is profound, and 
entails a prolonged fast of several months. In 
other cases, as with bats and squirrels, a rise 
in temperature, or even the stimulus of hunger, 
will awaken them into a temporary activity. The 
dormouse is a veritable Rip Van Winkle among 
the winter sleepers, and in consequence the 
pulses of life beat very, very slowly, and the 
temperature of the body falls to a very little 
above that of the surrounding air. So deep is 
the lethargy thus induced that if the poor little 
creature be suddenly awakened, as by being 
placed near a fire, death is the result within a 
few minutes, the sudden stimulation of the heart 
being fatal. The flickering lamp of life is kept 
alight in such cases by reserves of food taken 
in during the autumn plenty, when the body ac¬ 
cumulates an enormous store of fat, which is 
slowly absorbed during the fast. 
Frogs and toads are even deeper sleepers, 
approaching more nearly to death without dying 
than any other creatures save certain fishes. For 
in them even the heart stops beating, and breath¬ 
ing of course in the ordinary way is impossible. 
But the oxygenation of the blood, which is after 
all breathing, is carried on through the skin 
which, being excessively thin, allows the blood 
to come near enough to the surface to obtain 
(Continued on page 701.) 
