COXe’s TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.

696

I {hall clofe this chapter with feme curious experiments made in Siberia by Dr.Pallas, for afcertaining the difference of the heat in animals during their torpid andnatural ftates.

Pallas having made an incifion into the abdomen of a hedge-hog, during its tor- •pid ftate, and placed Fahrenheit’s thermometer in the belly, the mercury rofe onlyto 391, and the animal gave no more figns of feeling than if adlually dead, as wellwhilft the incifion was making, as when the wound was fewing up ; the animalbeing conveyed immediately into a warm room, gradually recovered from its lethargy,and walked about the chamber with as much infenffbility as if no operation had beenperformed.

Pallas kept this hedge-hog in his houfe from December to the end of March ; andalthough the heat of the apartment was fe'dom under 60 degrees, yet it eat no food, andwas never out of its torpid ftate, except once or twice, when it was placed behind theHove, in a heat from 77 to 80. Roufed by that expedient, it was awakened from itslethargy, took a few turns about the room, and eat a .few morfels ; but foon lay downagain, and paffed its torpid months as nature ordains.

Probably the bodies of thefe animials, .which fleep during winter, are graduallyprepared for the torpid ftate by a deficiency of food, and a confequent diminution ofnatural heat; for a thermometer piunged in the bellies of marmots and hedge-hogsin their natural ftate, rofe to 76, 79, 81, 86, 88, 99, ggi, namely, from 36! de-grees to 50 higher than it rofe when plunged into the belly of the hedge-hog in itstorpid ftate.

The following fa£! alfo feems to illuftrate the conjecture, that a certain ftate of bodypredifpofes to a torpid ftate. A tame marmot, which had become extremely fat duringfummer in the profeflbr’s houfe, continued awake during the whole winter, althoughexpofed to the fame cold which threw the whole fpecies into their torpid ftate in thatpart of Siberia ; nor was the dottor able to render it torpid, even with the afliftance ofthe ice-cellar, wherein he fometimes confined it during feveral days.

By comparing this experiment with the fleeping hedge-hog, which Pallas was notable to roufe during the whole winter, except for very ftiort intervals, though expofedto a heat of between 77 and 80 degrees ; it feems to follow, that a certain ftate of bodyis neceflary to aflift nature in laying afleep fome animals, to which they are graduallybrought by a deficiency of nouriftiment at the beginning of winter, w'hen they {hut uptheir holes, and retire to reft from inftindt; and that the impulfe of the circulation andanimal fpirits, arifing from heat or nutrition, fuperfedes the neceffity of the torpid ftate,and prevents their falling afleep.

It is alfo a curious circumftance in the oeconomy of nature, that Pallas found the heatof birds more confiderable than that of quadrupeds; namely, from 103 to 111 degrees;a wife arrangement of Providence, in proportioning the heat of the winged tribe to thefuperior cold obtaining in that part of the atmofphere where they range.

Chap.