The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1898-01-28

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time IN sleep. Squirrels are systematic
and long-headed providers for the
emerge lies of a long winter, and not
only stow away their Eavorite food in
one grand storehouse. but also make
deposits of it in other places, so that if
one granary or nuttery is destroyed or
becomes exhausted the caches can be
! depended upon. When the snow has
lain on the ground late in the spring,
holes may be seen in it at various
places in the woods where squirrels
have dug down through it to reach
nuts or grains or acorns buried in the
ground there months before for lust
such an emergency. The instinct with
which these little animals locate such
spots, covered as they are with maybe
a foot or more of snow, is unnerring
and marvellous. If the snow should
happen to be thickly covered with
crust the squirrels are unable to dig
through it, and it is no rare thing, to-
ward the end Of an unusually long win
ter, for woodsmen to find squirrels dead
on the crust, where they had been dig
ging desperately to uncover the cache
below, the supplies at the main store
having become exhausted.
"a curious phenomenon of hiberna-
ton, according to Professor Browne, is
shown in an animal called the loir, a
native of Senegal. This animal never
hibernates in its native cline, but every
specimen that was ever brought to
Europe became torpid as soon as ex-
posed to cold The common land tor
toise, no matter where it may be, and
it is voracious feeder, goes to sleep
in November and does not waken up
again until May. The hedgehog goes
to sleep as soon as the weather gets
cold and remains in unbroken slumher
six months.
AT the beginning of cold weather
bats begin to huddle together in
Ii Low trees, dark corners in deserted
houses and in caves and devices in the
rocks. They gradually lose all sensi-
bility and continue in a comatose state
until the return of genuine warm
weather. When you see the first bat
of the season huttering at nightEall
you can be sure that warm weather
has come 20 stay The little hooks at
the end OF one of the joints of each
wing are what the bat hangs itself up
by when it goes to sleep, whether for
a day or for months. When the bats
are clustering for Information, one of
the number hangs itself up by its hooks,
head downward, and the others cling
to it. 1t is on record that sixty bats
have been found in one cluster, the en-
tire weight of the lot being sustained
by the one bat clinging with its hooks
to whatever it had fastened them to
at the start-a weight of at least ten
pounds. The position of the central
bat in such cluster would be like
that of a man hanging to something by
his thumb nails and supporting the
weight of fifty-nine other men. So
completely is animation suspended in
the bat during the cold months that
no test yet applied has induced it to
show the least sign of life. Torpid
bats have been inclosed by the hour in
air-tight glass jars and not a particle
of the OK, gen in the jars has been ex-
hausted when they are taken out,
showing that the bats had not breath
ed.
''-As cold drives certain animal, in
sects and reptiles to state of torpidi-
ty, SO heat and lack of water bring |
about the same condition in others. |
The animal or reptile that hibernates,
or goes t, sleep in cold weather, ar
ranges its body so that it will con-
duce to the greatest warmth, while |
those that estivate, or become torpid |
in warm weather, place themselves in
positions that show that they want all
the GOODNESS the climate will permit.
The tenric, a tropical animal, carnivo-
rous and insectivorous, becomes torpid
during the greatest heat and lies on
its back with its body drawn to its
greatest length and its limbs spread
wide apart. Snakes estivate in the
south, all kinds together, just as
snakes hibernate in the north, but in
stead of rolling themselves in great
balls, as the northern snakes do, they
lie singly and stretched to their full
length.
Want of water will cause the COM
mon garden snail to go into state of
the most complete and curious lethar-
gy. This is the snail of the genus lu-
max and not the l,rgcr one of the ge-
nus helix In the latter the phenome
non is especially remarkable. In No
yember the snail forms just soft,
silky membrane across the oriental
opening of its shell. On the inner sur
face of that it deposits 4 coating of
carbonate of life, which Immediately
hardens like gypsum. This partition
is again lined with silky membrane.
The snail then retires little further
into the shell and forms a second men,
braneous partition, retiring again and
a gain until tn ere are six of these par
titlons between the snail and the lime