HIBERNATION
“Our bats,” continued Uncle Paul, “live exclusively on insects, and these constitute the hedgehog’s chief food, but it also hunts larger game or even eats fruit. In winter there are no longer any plump insects to be had, most of them having died after laying their eggs, and the few surviving ones having taken refuge from the cold in hiding-places where they would be very hard to find. The larvæ, too, the hope of future generations, are lying torpid, far out of sight under the ground, in the trunks of old trees, snugly hidden away. The white worm has bored several feet into the ground to escape the frost, there are no more June-bugs for the long-eared owl, no more night-flying moths, and no more beetles for the hedgehog. What, then, is to become of these insect-eaters?”
“They will die of hunger,” answered Jules.
“They would indeed all die, were it not for the providential arrangement I am now going to try to make you understand.
“You know the proverb, ‘He who sleeps dines,’—a very true proverb in its simple statement of an undeniable fact. Well, the hedgehog, the bat, and other animals put the principle into practice with [[59]]a wisdom quite equal to that of man. Not being able to dine, for want of insects, they go to sleep; and so deep and heavy is their sleep that to designate it we use a special word, lethargy.
“Another proverb says, ‘As you make your bed, so must you lie.’ Our dumb animals, never lacking in wisdom in ordering their own affairs, take good care not to forget this proverb, but to adopt wise precautions before abandoning themselves to their long winter sleep. The hedgehog chooses for itself a secure retreat amid the great roots of some old tree stump. Toward the end of the autumn it carries grass and dry leaves to deposit there, and arranges them in a hollow ball, in the middle of which it rolls itself up and goes to sleep. Bats assemble in great numbers in the warm depths of some cavern where nothing can disturb their slumbers. Heads down and bodies packed close together, they hug the walls, covering them with a sort of velvet tapestry; or, clinging to one another, they hang in bunches from the roof. Now the winter may do its worst and the winds may rage; the hedgehog in its warm blanket of leaves and the bats in their sheltered caves sleep a deep sleep until summer returns and with it insects, food, animation, life.”
“But don’t they eat anything all winter long?” asked Emile, incredulously.
“Nothing whatever,” his uncle assured him.
“Then bats and hedgehogs must have a secret. For my part, I eat more in the winter than at any [[60]]other time, and no amount of sleep would satisfy my hunger.”
“Yes, the bat and the hedgehog have a secret in this matter. I am going to tell you this secret, but it is a little hard to understand, I warn you.