The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-02-23
SLEEPING ALL WINTER.
Problem of Information in the
, Animal Kingdom.
Subsisting for Months Without Food or
Air-Curlous Instances of Suspen-
sion of Natures FunctiOns-The
Explanation.

We are apt to forget how large a
part of the animal creation goes to
sleep for the whole winter. The dead
season of the year is obviously an APP
propriate name so far as regards the
trees and plants, but it is just as cor
rect term for numerous species of
living creatures. Nearly all the in
sects, crustaceans, worms, snails and
the like. go into winter quarters; frogs,
and all the reptile kind, bury them
selves in the mud, or under stones,
and even a few animals of mans own
class spend several months of the year
in state of unbroken sleep. This is
the problem of hibernatiOn-a great
deal more debated in former times
than now. Aristotle began the specu-
lations about it, and extended his in
quiry to certain of the fishes of the
Egean Sea. Hardly any naturalist of
note missed writing about it towards
the end of the last century, or in the
early part of the present one. The
curiosity has always been greatest in
animals who have the faculty of coiling
themselves up in a hole in the ground,
and going to sleep for months together.
The water vole is one of these:
"Down into his burrow he cozily creeps,
And quietly through the long winter time
sleeps
Gilbert White was told by farmer
in the parish of Selborne that his pillow
had turned up vole's winter nest in q
field some hundred yards from the
water, with a gallon of potatoes stored
at CO end of it. Our other common
winter sleepers are the hedgehog, the
dormouse and the bat Offers, badgers
and squirrels seem to have the faculty
OF lying perdu for days at a time in q
very hard season; but they do not count
among the wintcr-sleepers proper. In
Alpine countries the various species of
marmots are well-known hibernators;
in Russia and Siberia there are several
such species. and all over North Ger
many the most familiar instance is a
curious animal, called the hamster,
something between a large rat and
rabbit. In Canada an interesting OBJ
servation was made by General Davies
on the profound winter sleep of the
jumping mouse, and published, with
picture in the "Linnaan Transactions
for 1897. The little animal, which was
a curiosity in the summer time for its
flying leaps through the long grass,
1nst cinht nf about thu month IF
October, and was not seen again until
the month OF May. General Davies
solved the problem of what became of
it all these months. A laborer, digging
the foundations of a garden-house near
Quebec in the spring, turned up with
his spade lump OF clay like cricket
ball. on breaking the clod he found q
nicely-molded round space inside, with
in which lay jumping-mouse, with its
long hind legs folded against it's breast
and its head sunk deeply between
them. 1t was placed in a chip box in
a warm room until it should awake;
but the change of atmosphere was too
abrupt for it. and it never awol1e. The
The jumping mouse cozily sleeping in
a smooth nest of clay two feet below
the ground brings us face to face with
the whole problem of winter sleep.
The animal had neither food nor air
for some six months of the year, and
yet it was alive, and would resume all
its old agility with the warmth of sum-
mer.
1t is clear that winter-sleepers sub
sist for months without food, but it is
not so easy to understand how they can
do without air. There is, however,
no doubt about the fact; their breath
ing becomes gradually slower during
the first week or two of their hiberna-
ton, and soon ceases altogether.
Nearly all their manifold functions
come to rest. Taking no food, they
have nothing to digest; their senses are
lost for the time, and they are insensi-
BILE to pricks CIR pinching of the skin.
A sleeping marmot has been trundled
along the ground like an inanimate
ball. The only organ that keeps
working all the time without a mo-
rlent's rest 10 the heart, and even the
heart is brought down to less than half
of its usual waking force. All these
faGEs have been confirmed, it is need
less to say, by the most minute obsery-
atioRs. Learned Germans, Italians
and others have kept bats, hodgehogs,
marmots and halnsters in their bed
rooms and back kitchens, and have
watched and investigated the creatures
in all sorts of ways. There is no doubt
at all that. unless when they are I'M
usually disturbed. they do not breathe,
do not feel, do not exe"cise any of the
ordinary functions of their waking
state, except the great ard indispensa-
able function Of the heart. Their in !