Copy 2

Animals in menageries / By William Swainson.

  • William Swainson
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Animals in menageries / By William Swainson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    57/388 page 49
    on extent of more than twenty feet. They live, how- ever, only in that part of the burrow which is under water. During winter it seems that they do not become torpid, — a circumstance which is said to expose them to inevitable and serious evil. The ice, which in their native country lasts for so long a period, imprisons them under water, and it would appear that they then endure a state of the most cruel torment ; for, if there are any fissures or holes through which they can respire, they run thither to thrust out their proboscis; but sbould they fail in this, they can only exist on the small quan- tity of air contained within their burrow. A trifling number thus survive; but the others perish by suffo- cation. ‘Their attempts to release themselves, which we have just noticed, are more numerous in proportion to the duration of the cold season. The foregoing account we met with in Mr. Griffiths’ ingenious compilation, without any allusion to the au- thority from which it is derived. It may be generally correct ; but nature, or rather a merciful Providence, has never made “ cruel torment” to be the condition of existence to any one of its creatures. That many in- dividuals may suffer in the manner and from the causes described, during winters of uncommon severity, is very possible ; but that by far the greater part survive, is more than probable. Their burrows are stated to spread over a very wide surface; and it is clear that those parts which the animal does not inhabit, are appropriated to lay in stores of food for the winter. So far, then, we see only the same benevolent gift of instinct, and the same powers granted for resisting the effects of winter, as is so ge- nerally given to the mouse family: the air, and the food, contained in their dwellings, we should consider quite sufficient for the ordinary wants of nature ; and so far from the desmans being condemned to “ cruel tor- ments,” we should rather fancy they would be very warmly and comfortably housed in their winter quarters.
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