WILD ANIMALS IN WINTER QUARTERS.
By Edmund Collins
AS SOON as the leaves begin to turn in the woods, several animals and insects busy themselves gathering food for the winter, when snow covers the ground and no food is to be obtained. But there are some animals which make no provision for the season of frost and snow, but remain in holes in the ground or in hollow trees for three or four months—scarcely moving. It was long actually believed that the bear sucked his paws all winter, and in some unaccountable way lived on the fat that he had accumulated through the summer. This is not so. The truth is that, where there is little motion, there is small waste of tissue; the heart beat is barely strong enough to keep the blood moving, the breathing is nearly suspended, and the animal comes forth in the spring, when the snow begins to drip from the boughs, very lean and hungry, but in no other way the worse for the long fast. Bruin does not retire from the open till he is compelled to do so by frost and snow. He lives through the summer on berries, buds, insects of every kind, grass mice, or any other small animal that he can get. I may say, for the benefit of the gentlemen who publish so many terrifying bear stories in the daily newspapers, that bruin is as harmless as a cow, during the summer, and will take to his heels in fright on sight of a human being. It is only when he leaves his lair too early in the spring, and he is not able to find anything to eat, that he will attack man; but he prefers a calf or a sheep, and the farmer's tale is often short at sundown. But, as I have said, when winter overtakes him, he sets about to find a winter home. He has very likely during the summer, when poking his nose into hollow trees looking for the honey of wild bees, seen some place that will suit him, and to this he goes straightway. The tree must be a large one, and he will not select it unless there is a space with plenty of room where the snow or rain cannot reach him. This secured, he bundles himself together, his head on his paws, closes his eyes, and remains in this posture till "those blind motions of the spring" tell that "the year has turned." Then he drags himself out and once more begins his struggle for an existence. Sometimes, however, when lying in this stupor, loud sounds startle him, and his tree castle shakes; this is when the lumbermen have found him and are assailing the tree with their axes. He seldom escapes, and if he does, he will surely die in the snowy forest unless he can find another home. MR. SQUIRREL OUT OF THE COLD.
The squirrel gads the woods in great glee, garnering through the hazy days of Indian summer, after the destroyer has come and breathed upon the leaves, changing their green, as if by magic, into yellow, purple, crimson, and gold. He always lays in an ample store for the ruthless season, and when the fairy who held the midsummer party called her subjects about her to ask what each would contribute to the feast— "There rose a squirrel pert. 'What,' he cried, 'about dessert?
I can bring you hither, from my winter larder,
Nuts and little berries red that I stowed beneath my bed
For the season when the tempest whistles harder.'", He is a very industrious berry picker, and he can find a score of nuts where the brightest schoolboy that ever ranged the woods might scarcely find one, because he knows not alone the beech, chestnut, or hazel they grow upon, but the branch; and if a storm comes and shakes them off while he is in a hollow tree, he comes out when the sun begins to shine, and goes to the spot where the fruit has fallen. His little castle is almost invariably in a hollow tree in a dense part of the wood, and he usually enters it some distance up through a knothole. While the tempest howls outside, the squirrels remain warm and contented indoors, not romping and chattering as they do in summer. When they thirst, there is always snow to be had. HOW OTHER ANIMALS SPEND THE WINTER.
The porcupine prefers a hole in a tree for its winter house. The muskrat tunnels far under a mud bank, and mines out a dwelling with many chambers for the season of dark and cold. The innumerable lizards and snakes that abound almost all over creation creep away as soon as frosty winds begin to whistle. Some of them crawl into holes in trees; they also hide under stones, dead leaves, fallen trees, or masses of boughs. These reptiles like to spend the winter in large companies, and are often found in midwinter tangled and interlaced, but apparently without any life. Respiration is almost suspended, and it requires the most careful and delicate tests to detect traces of any vitality. A hunter, a very good naturalist, who spent the winter in the wooded region known as the Tobique, in New Brunswick, Canada, told me the following interesting story:— "About the first of February, when the mercury dropped every night to zero, and sometimes many degrees below it, I, accompanied by two Milicite Indians, found a sheltered spot in the heart of a spruce forest. I at once put the Indians at work cutting down logs for a shanty, and I went among the logs gathering moss to stop the chinks. I selected a spot where a mass of boughs had been stripped from a log some time before, and when our timber was ready, I directed the Indians to remove the pile and build there. It was heavy work, as the snow was pretty deep. Presently one of my Indians, as he drew a large bough from the bottom, gave a yell, and, going over, I saw on the ground about three score of black snakes all twisted and twined together. There was not a sign of life in any of them, still they were only comatose. We should have had a nice surprise had we built our shanty on top of the boughs, for the heat would have brought the reptiles back to animation. The snakes came, evidently, from the stretches of wild grass lying near." The land tortoise takes good care to get out of the reach of cold. He either finds or digs a deep hole in the ground, crawls into it, and remains there till spring, without so much as moving his head. The fresh-water turtle makes a tunnel in the bank of a stream or pond, and goes well into it for the season; but if the water is deep and the mud soft, he drops to the bottom below the ice limit, and there rests till about the middle of April. It may be stated more specifically here that among the hibernating animals every gradation of slumber has been noted. Some creatures display only imperfect hibernation or repose, walking, moving, and feeding now and again during the winter; others may show signs of life a few times in three or four months, while the remainder, as I have said, appear as if they are dead. If you disturb the most venomous viper in winter, and he stings, no harm will come of it. But many of the hibernating animals perish when the weather is exceedingly cold, unless warmly housed. The animal temperature falls to that of the atmosphere, and when the cold becomes intense, the animal is wakened by it, moves about for a short time, then relapses into a torpor, which speedily ends in death. A curious fact is that the action of the heart has been known to continue frequently for a considerable time after the hibernating animal has been decapitated.—Our Animal Friends.