“The name ‘hibernation’ is given to this temporary suspension of vitality, or rather this slowing up of life, to which certain animals are subject during the winter. In the number of hibernating animals, or animals that indulge in this long winter sleep, are to be included, besides the hedgehog and the bat, the marmot, the dormouse, the lizard, serpents of various kinds, frogs, and other reptiles. Do you need to be told that in order to assume and maintain this torpid condition in which for whole months food is unnecessary, a special organization is required? Not every creature can hold its breath at will and thus escape the necessity of eating. The dog and the cat might sleep ever so deeply, yet as their breathing would go on almost as actively as in their waking hours, hunger would arouse them before long.”
“Just as it would me,” said Emile. [[66]]
“No animals that have an assured supply of food for the winter hibernate, but those that would otherwise perish with hunger in cold weather are saved from destruction by the providential torpor that overtakes them at the approach of the winter season. Their food supply being cut off, they go to sleep. The marmot is wrapped in slumber while the turf on the high mountains is covered with snow; the dormouse when there is no longer any fruit; frogs, toads, snakes, lizards, bats, and hedgehogs, as soon as there cease to be any more insects to feed upon.” [[67]]
CHAPTER IX
THE MOLE
Uncle Paul had just trapped a mole that for some days had been uprooting young vegetables and unearthing newly planted seeds in a corner of the garden. He called the children’s attention to the animal’s black coat, softer than the finest velvet; showed them its snout and made them note its peculiar fitness for digging; pointed to its fore paws, shaped like wide shovels for moving the earth with astonishing rapidity; and remarked on its eyes, so small as to be well-nigh useless, and its jaws armed with savage-looking teeth.
“It is a great pity,” said he, “that we are prejudiced against the mole on account of its habit of mining, for there is not in all the world a more pitiless destroyer of vermin.”
“I had always heard,” Louis remarked, “and had believed until now, that moles lived on a vegetable diet, chiefly of roots, and that they tunneled under the ground to get them.”
“To forewarn you of the errors so widely current on the subject of the diet of certain animals, I described to you in some detail the formation of teeth, which always indicate the kind of food eaten. I showed you that one has only to examine an animal’s [[68]]teeth in order to determine whether it is carnivorous or herbivorous. Remember the adage that summed up our talks on the subject: Show me its teeth and I will tell you what the animal eats.