HIBERNATION 361 
The supply of food may also be a factor producing this condition, as 
torpidity in dormice and groundhogs is delayed or prevented when the 
food supply is plentiful. I question this for the following reasons: 
Spermophiles and marmots retire for their winter sleep when their food 
supply is at its best; they only remain active until the full coating of 
fat is acquired. Here in British Columbia they will retire a month or 
more earlier in the low lands than they do at the timber line. In the 
latter regions they have not acquired enough fat until the end of Sep- 
tember, as they come out of hibernation later in the spring. 
In this connection it is interesting to note the influence of the food 
supply on man, protectively causing a condition closely resembling 
hibernation. For instance, there is in Russia a certain class of peasants 
who suffer from a chronic state of famine which becomes more acute 
at the end of the year and more or less severe according to circum- 
stances In these cases, when the head of the family sees, towards the 
end of autumn, that by a normal consumption of their supply of wheat 
it will not last the family through the winter, he makes arrangements 
to diminish the rations as much as possible. Knowing that it will be 
difficult to preserve their health and keep up the physical force neces- 
sary for their work in the spring, he and his family plunge themselves 
into a condition known as “ lejka” which means that everybody simply 
goes to bed, lying down on the top of the flat stove, and there they stay 
during the four or five months of winter. They get up, during this 
time, only to replenish the fire, eat a small piece of black bread and 
take a small drink of water. The peasant and his family try to move 
as little as possible and sleep as much as they can—stretched out on the 
stove top, they preserve almost complete immobility. Their only care 
during the long winter is to keep down the body metabolism, to waste 
as little as possible of their animal heat, and for that reason they try 
to eat and drink less, move less, and to generally reduce the activities 
of their bodies. Their instinct commands them to sleep as much as 
possible—obscurity and silence reign in the hut where, in the warmest 
place, either singly or crowded, the occupants pass the winter season in 
a condition closely resembling hibernation. 
The following observations are purely physiological phenomena, 
occurring in mammals only. 
RESPIRATION 
The frequency of respiration is greatly diminished, the rhythm is 
irregular and often of the Cheyne-Stokes type.® What little respira- 
*In the Cheyne-Stokes type of respiration, there is a pause in the respi- 
ratory act, then a small respiration occurs, to be followed by a deeper one; 
then a still deeper act and so on until the maximum is reached, when the 
respirations begin to gradually diminish until they die away altogether. This 
is followed by a prolonged pause, then they gradually begin again. 
VOL. LXXVII.—25. 
