By the REV. J. G. WOOD, M.A.
The hedgehog, like the bat, is carnivorous.
Toward the end of autumn it looks out for some retired spot, a perfectly
dry cavity in the ground or in the rock being the favorite resort. Here
it gathers together a large quantity of dry moss, leaves, grass, etc.,
covers itself with them, rolls itself into a ball, and sinks into the
hibernating lethargy.
It is rather remarkable that a hibernating animal is much more sensitive
to a slight touch than to general handling. If, for example, a single
hair of a hibernating bat or a single quill of a hibernating hedgehog be
raised, the creature gives a quick start, and takes a few breaths before
relapsing into lethargy. Yet a bat may be sunk under water, or have a
thermometer tube passed into its stomach, without being awakened.
When a hibernating bat is sunk under water of the same temperature
as that of its body, it does not even attempt to breathe. A similar
experiment was tried with a hedgehog, and after it had been under water
for twenty-one minutes, one tiny bubble of air rose to the surface. I
need scarcely say that if the animal had been awake, it would have been
drowned in less than a fourth of the time.
For the bat, no food can be found until the warm weather returns, and so
the hibernation is unbroken for at least five months. But, though food be
almost entirely withdrawn from the hedgehog, some nutriment remains, and
therefore the animal is so constituted that it can discover and consume
the food which has been provided for it.
This food chiefly consists of snails, which are themselves hibernators,
and which during the winter months conceal themselves so effectually
that they are seldom detected except by their two great wintry foes, the
thrush and the hedgehog.
The hedgehog, not possessing so wide a range of hibernating temperature
as the bat, which actually “hibernates” daily for a short time even
during the hottest summers, is roused by an hour or two of warm sunshine
such as we often experience about February. Awakened by the warmth, the
hedgehog unrolls itself, creeps out of its refuge, and trundles (I know
no better word to describe its peculiar pace) away in search of food.
Taught by instinct, it is sure to come upon one of the strongholds of the
snail, eats as many as it needs, returns to its home, and sleeps until
awakened in a similar manner.
Then we have the vegetable-eating squirrel, which is a partial hibernator.
During the later weeks of autumn, the squirrel may be seen in the act of
making provision for the winter. In the first place it collects a vast
store of fallen leaves, moss, twigs, and similar materials, and with them
constructs its winter nest.
Squirrels have two distinct kinds of nest, one for the winter and the
other for the summer. Both nests are of considerable size, and both are
so well concealed that to detect them is a very difficult task. The
summer nest is comparatively light in texture, and is placed near the
ends of lofty boughs, where it is hidden by the leaves. Moreover, its
position renders it almost unassailable, as the branch on which it is
built would not even endure the weight of a small boy. In the winter,
when the leaves are off the trees, the nests are very conspicuous, and
in the New Forest, where I gave some time to watching the habits of the
squirrel, they are exceedingly numerous.
In fact, the squirrels of the New Forest swarm in such numbers, and do
so much damage to the young twigs of the trees, that many hundreds must
be shot annually, just as is the case with rabbits. They are always
shot just before hibernating, because, as they put on new robes for the
winter, their skins fetch the best prices. Moreover, the animals become
fat, as is the case with all hibernators, and so their flesh is in good
condition for the table. Squirrel-pie is a well-known luxury in some
parts of England, and is far superior to rabbit-pie, as it is free from
the peculiar flavor which attaches itself to the rabbit, and to many
persons is exceedingly repulsive.
The winter nest is a very large one, containing at least four or five
times as much material as would serve for a summer’s nest. Instead of
being placed at the end of a bough, it is always set in the hollow caused
by the junction of several large branches with the trunk. The exterior is
so skilfully formed, that when the tree is viewed from below, even the
most practised eyes will often fail to detect the nest, large as it is.
The amount of material which a squirrel employs in this nest is really
wonderful. I have taken out of a single nest armful after armful of
leaves, until quite a large mound was raised at the foot of the tree,
and I should think that there was enough material to fill two large
wheelbarrows, even if it were pressed down closely.
I may here mention that the nest of the squirrel is known in some parts
of England by the name of “drey,” and in others by that of “cage.” The
latter term is employed in the New Forest.
The house being ready, next comes the task of laying up a store of food.
This consists chiefly of nuts, which the animal chooses with marvelous
sagacity, or rather, instinct. No one ever yet found an unsound or
worm-eaten nut in a squirrel’s store. The animal does not rely on
a single storehouse, but hides its treasures here and there within
easy range of its nest. Many nuts it buries, and owing to this habit,
nut-trees are apt to spring up in unexpected places, for, if the weather
should be exceptionally severe, the squirrel awakens but seldom from its
winter sleep, and so does not need the store which it has hidden. Or, it
may die or be killed after it has laid up its food, and so the buried
nuts will take root and produce trees.
A remarkable instance of this fact occurred in the grounds of Walton
Hall, belonging to the late Charles Waterton.
In former days there had been in the estate an old wooden mill. It had
been disused for many years, and at last the only relic of it was the
upper millstone which was left on the ground. The reader may be aware
that the center of the upper stone is pierced with a tolerably large
hole, through which the corn makes its way between the stones.
In the autumn of 1813, some nut-eating, hibernating animal, almost
certainly a squirrel, had found this stone, and thought that the hole
would make an admirable hiding-place for a nut. For some reason, the nut
was never eaten, and consequently began to germinate. Mr. Waterton, who
pervaded his grounds at all hours of day and night, detected the green
shoot at once when it appeared in the spring of the following year.
Foreseeing that the shoot, if it lived long enough to become a tree,
would raise the stone from the ground, he had a fence put round it, and
gave special orders for its preservation.
His prevision proved to be perfectly correct. In course of years, the
little shoot became a large tree twenty-five feet in height, and bearing
fine crops of fruit annually, and Mr. Edmund Waterton told me that in
his boyhood he had often climbed it for the purpose of procuring nuts.
After the stem was large enough to fill the orifice in which it had been
planted it lifted the stone, and raised it some eight or nine inches
above the ground.
As might be imagined, in the course of years the pressure of the stone
destroyed the bark, and stopped the circulation of the sap, so that
the tree died. In order to save it from being blown down, the trunk and
branches were cut away some feet above the stone. On my last visit to
Walton Hall, shortly before Mr. Waterton’s death, the stone was still
suspended above the ground, and as a memorial of so remarkable a result
of hibernation, I made a careful sketch of it, which was published by
Messrs. Macmillan.
It is also noticeable as an example of the slow, silent, and almost
irresistible power of vegetation. Even the soft and pulpy mushroom has
been known to raise a flat, heavy paving-stone fairly off the ground. Had
the mushrooms been allowed to grow, and the paving-stone laid on them, it
would have crushed them under its weight. But the vital powers of growth
are so tremendous, even when acting upon so feeble a medium, that they
performed a feat which would have been thought impossible had it not been
witnessed.
In some parts of South America, where the growth of vegetation is
surprisingly rapid, there used to be, and may be still, a mode of
inflicting capital punishment by the power of vegetation. We all know the
sharply-pointed and bayonet-like leaves of certain aloes. The victim was
simply fastened to the ground over a spot where an aloe was just starting
from the earth, and before a day had gone by, the leaves would grow
completely through the body.
I briefly mention these examples in order to show how all nature is
linked together, and that the hibernation of animals and the growth of
vegetables are parts of one great system.
Owing to the manner in which the squirrel disperses his treasures, we can
not tell the amount of the store required by each animal, but in Northern
America we find one which gives the needful information. This is the
chipping squirrel, chipmunk, so called from its cry. Its scientific name
is _Tamias Lysteri_.
It is a little creature not larger than a two-thirds grown rat, and is
very conspicuous on account of the black and yellow stripes which run
along its back. Being a creature which leads a subterranean life for the
greatest part of its time, it does not possess the bushy tail of the
tree-inhabiting squirrels.
Its underground habitation is a most elaborate composition of galleries
and chambers, so that there is plenty of space for storage. Audubon once
dug up a nest inhabited by four chipping squirrels, and found in it two
pecks of acorns, a quart of large nuts, rather more than two quarts of
buckwheat, besides about half a pint of grass seeds and ordinary wheat.
Considering that the animals would pass the greater portion of the winter
months in lethargy, and would only eat at long intervals, the amount of
food is really surprising.
In former days, when the red men were supreme and depended solely on
hunting for their food, many a tribe has been saved from extermination
for want of food in the winter time by digging up the nests of the
chipping squirrel, and eating the inhabitants as well as their stores.
In the dormouse we have another instance of hibernation brought into
contact with man.
This pretty little creature, which is too familiar to need description,
possesses in a great degree the power of becoming fat toward the end of
autumn. The ancient Romans were well aware of this fact, and had regular
establishments called “gliraria” for the express purpose of fattening
dormice for the table.
The dormouse makes a singularly comfortable nest for itself. It is nearly
spherical and is composed externally of grass blades woven together
in a very ingenious manner. The animal only leaves a small aperture,
concealed by grass blades which can be pulled asunder when the inmate
enters or leaves the nest, and which resume their position like the folds
of a drawn curtain. I once had a remarkably fine specimen of a dormouse
nest which was cut out of a hedge. The curtain of grass blades was so
admirably formed that it could seldom be detected by any one who did not
know the specimen.
Around, but not in this nest, the dormouse places its store of winter
food, which is much of the same nature as that of the squirrel, and
mostly consists of nuts. For this reason the Germans call the creature by
the appropriate name of hazelmaus.
It was made in the fork of a hazel-branch, and was about four feet from
the ground, so that the small branches served to strengthen as well as
conceal it. The nest was exactly six inches long by three in width, and
was made almost entirely of several kinds of grass, the broad-bladed
sword-grass being the chief material. Interwoven with the grass-blades
were sundry leaves, all hazel and maple, and none of them having been
taken from the branch on which the nest was built. It is therefore
possible that a dormouse may have placed the nest in Mr. Waterton’s
mill-stone. I do not, however, think it probable, because there was no
bush near the stone, and, as far as is known, the dormouse always stores
its food close to its nest. The squirrel, however, ranges farther afield,
and may often be seen in the winter-time digging through the snow, at
some distance from its tree, so as to disinter the hidden food.
Another vegetable-eating hibernating rodent is the too well-known hamster
(_Cricetus frumentarius_) of Northern Europe.
It is about a foot in length, but, on account of its numbers, is a most
formidable enemy to the agriculturist. Even when seeking its daily food
it is terribly destructive to the crops, but its worst raids are made at
the end of the autumn, when it provides a store for the winter. For this
purpose it excavates a deep and complicated system of burrows, in which
it stores a quantity of grain so enormous that after the harvest the
farmers are in the habit of digging up the hamster’s burrows and securing
their stolen property.
A single hamster carried off sixty pounds of wheat for its winter store,
while another had thought that a hundred weight of beans were necessary
for its subsistence. The animal wakes very early from its hibernation,
sometimes even in February. It does not, however, come out of its burrow
at once, but remains beneath the earth until the warm weather has fairly
set in.
Now we come to the bears.
I need not say that intertropical bears do not require to hibernate.
Moreover of those bears which inhabit the colder climates the adult
males seldom, if ever, hibernate, while the young of both sexes are very
uncertain in this respect. For example, with the grizzly bear the young
males and females are found at large throughout the whole of winter, and
the same is the case with the polar bear. With the brown bear of Northern
Europe and the black bear of North America the young animals seem to be
rather capricious in hibernating.
In all cases, however, when the adult female bear is about to add to the
family she prepares for hibernating. With the exception of the polar
bear, who is obliged to form a most remarkable habitation, the female
chooses a safe retreat long before it is required, and gradually conveys
into it a large quantity of leaves, moss, and small branches, so as to
make a comfortable bed.
Shortly before hibernating she becomes enormously fat, and the new fur
which she puts on is quite half as long again as that of the summer
raiment. Hunters, therefore, are naturally anxious to kill the bear just
before hibernating.
In the first place, a fully developed winter fur, taken before it has
been injured by use, will sell for twice as much money as the fur of the
same animal when taken in summer or after hibernating. In the next place,
the fat, which is so well-known as “bear’s-grease,” always commands
a ready sale. Lastly, as bear’s meat, prepared either by freezing or
smoking, forms the greatest part of winter food in many a family, it
is a matter of the greatest consequence to have that meat in the best
condition.
How valuable it is under such circumstances may be realized by reading
the life of the old American hunter, Daniel Boone, and seeing how, when
his wife and children were nearly dying of hunger and cold, he forced his
way across the half-frozen river, succeeded in killing a bear, and by
almost superhuman exertions transported all the meat across the river to
his hut.
Supposing that the bear is not interrupted in her work, she retires to
the den just before winter, and closes the entrance as well as she can.
In this place of refuge the young are born. They are at first scarcely
larger than rats, but increase in size, drawing the whole of their
nourishment from their mother, who takes no food during the whole of the
winter and early spring. In consequence, when she and her young emerge,
the latter are fat and strong, while the mother is but the shadow of her
former self. Here again is a wonderful example of the many ways in which
God “giveth meat to all flesh.”
When a male or young female hibernates it comes out of its refuge as fat
as it was on entering it. The hibernation is so perfect that there is
scarcely any waste of tissue, as is the case with the mother bear, whose
young practically subsist on the store of fat which she laid up in the
autumn.
The polar bear when about to become a mother is obliged to find a very
different kind of refuge, as there are neither caves, hollow trees, or
branches, and often there is nothing but ice as a resting-place and snow
as a covering. So she depends for shelter upon the snow. After selecting
a convenient snow-drift, she scrapes a hole in it, and suffers the snow
to fall upon her as it will.
In that country, where even the human inhabitants are obliged to make
their houses out of snow or perish, she is soon buried under many feet of
snow. Her thick fur keeps the snow from contact with the skin, while the
heat of her body gradually melts the snow away from around her, so that
she lies in a sort of tent.
Now comes the question, ventilation. Were she alone all the time she
would need no communication with the external air, as the hibernation
would be perfect, and respiration would not be required. But her
young, who do not hibernate, must breathe continually from the time of
their birth, and she, being disturbed by them, is forced to breathe
occasionally.
Now, it is found that when animals are buried under snow their warm
breath continually ascends, and makes a passage into the air. The
aperture is a very small one, but quite sufficient for the purpose;
and even in our Scotch Highlands sheep are enabled to breathe in a
similar manner when buried in the terrible snow-drifts, which are apt to
overwhelm whole flocks at a time.—_London Sunday Magazine._