of the 'Julie Plante' "-are stock recitations from end to end of the Dominion, as sure bids for Homeric laughter in an Eastern theatre as at a shack-building bee in some remote corner of the Western prairies. Everybody laughs at them; few know why. A stanza from the story of the great storm on Lac St. Pierre, in which the wood scow "Julie Plante" "bus' up wan arpent from de shore," should suffice to elucidate this point:

De captinne walk on de fronte deck,
An' walk de hin' deck too—
He call de crew from up de hole,
He call de cook also.

De cook she's name was Rosie,
She come from Montreal;
Was chambre maid on lumber barge
On de Grande Lachine Canal.

It is recorded that an English lady regarded the statement in the last two lines as a striking instance of Canadian prosperity. Probably these recitations would be a dismal failure in a London music-hall.

But it was not as a token of gratitude for these laughter-provoking rhymes that Dr. Louis Fréchette, the Poet Laureate of the Dominion, handed on to Drummond the complimentary phrase, "path-finder of a new land of song," which Longfellow had given to him. "Qu'il mette en scène," says the one French-Canadian poet who is read in France, after paying this pretty compliment, "le gros fermier fier de son bien ou de ses filles à marier, le vieux médecin de campagne ne comptant plus ses états de service, le jeune amoureux qui rêve au clair de la lune, le vieillard qui repasse en sa mémoire la longue suite des jours révolus, le conteur de légendes, l'aventurier des pays d'en haut,' et même le Canadian exilé qui croit toujours entendre résonner à son oreille le vague tintement des cloches de son village; que le récit soit plaisant ou pathétique, jamais la note ne sonne

faux, jamais la bizarrerie ne dégénère en puérilité burlesque." Assuredly it is an artistic triumph to have earned this appreciation from a severe critic by keeping the rules of tact and taste which are the essence of the French manner at its best. The white simplicity of the Drummond pastoral, with never a single purple patch crying out to be quoted, is seldom appreciated by English readers at a first hearing. Afterwards they haunt the ear, as does the shimmering sound of sleigh-bells, the little laughter of music, when it has passed by into the moonlit silence. The veritable odor of the Laurentian earth breathes in the homely verses. And so the time comes when the reader conceives a true tenderness for the busy, simple, kindly, transplanted Normans (each with a slight reversion to the aboriginal Norman, which comes of renewed contact with the wilderness), and then, indeed, the great end of Drummond's life is fully accomplished. To the writer he confessed that his chief object was to confirm the entente which is the psychical basis of Confederation, to bridge with a tear or a smile, or the two-in-one, the slowly narrowing racial antithesis. It is impossible to prove this much by means of quotations. His pastorals are too long to quote in their entirety; to give excerpts is to tear some simple wild-flower in pieces. Still, we can drink health to the Canadian magpie, the constant comrade of the exiled habitant, with its queer bottle-shaped body and name of શ bottle:

Wisky Jack, get ready, we drink you! Toujours à vot'bonne santé! Baptême!

Or echo the wish of the eldest Jean Ba'tiste:

But leetle Bateese! Please don't forget We rader you're stayin' de small boy yet!

The month of April witnesses every year in northern climates one of the strangest and least understood of the phenomena of wild nature-the resumption by a number of our native animals of their normal functions after a winter's sleep lasting months, which in many cases has been deathlike in the almost complete suspension of vital activities. When the swallows return in spring to flit between the budding hedges and skim again over the pools and rivers, it may be noticed that their place is taken toward dusk in the warmer evenings of the month by the bats which have also been absent during the winter. Our native bats do not, like the swallows, fiy southward after the sun with the waning year. They pass the winter close to their usual haunts. Hidden away in hollow trees, in the roofs of

old houses, and in belfries, caves, and other remote recesses where they are completely free from disturbance, they hang during the cold months of the year packed closely together in large numbers. The condition of bats during this period of winter rest is characteristic, for the bat and the hedgehog share the distinction of being the two of our native animals in which the conditions of true hibernation most thoroughly prevail. A remarkable fact about winter sleep in animals in which the state of torpor becomes profound is that there appears to be all but conplete cessation of all the bodily functions. To the ordinary mind it seems hard to imagine a living creature existing without either food or air. Yet a bat or a hedgehog in the midst of its winter torpor goes for months without food and practically ceases to

Hedgehogs, bats, marmots, squirrels, field-mice, and badgers, amongst mammals, and frogs and toads amongst cold-blooded animals, are the best known instances of true hibernation furnished by our native creatures, and in nearly all these cases, in which the physiological disturbance must be profound, the onset of the period of torpor is marked by the same conditions. Towards the end of the period of summer activity great quantities of food are taken and the animals grow fat in consequence. In no case is the condition of complete torpor reached suddenly. Some animals, like squirrels, simply appear to get increasingly drowsy with the decline of the year. Our native squirrel rarely sinks into a state of complete torpor; he will sleep in the coldest part of the year for days and even weeks, but he can nearly always be roused, and in genial weather in mid-winter he comes out to feed, and may be seen in the woods visiting the hoards which he has hidden away in the autumn. The badger's winter sleep much resembles that of the squirrel. The dormouse seems also gradually to sink into a state of chronic torpor with the onset of winter, but its sleep far more nearly resembles death, so much so that it is often quite impossible to rouse it. It may be handled and plunged into

tain experiments which have been tried, it has lived for hours immersed in a poisonous gas such as carbon dioxide, and has awakened apparently none the worse for its curious experience. Bats are soon drowned if placed in water in ordinary conditions, but they will undergo with immunity prolonged immersion in the midst of their winter torpor. A sleeping hedgehog in winter will take no evil effects from a stay of nearly half an hour under water.

It cannot be said that science as yet is able to explain satisfactorily the conditions which prevail in the winter sleep of animals. The subject remains a very obscure one. Many of the explanations given in books on the subject are obviously wrong, and others may easily be proved to be so. Frogs and toads often pass the winter buried in mud, and are sometimes dug out from the bottom of ponds. As both frogs and toads are air-breathing it is usually said that respiration must be carried on through the skin in such cases. The writer, who has seen toads in conditions of hibernation enclosed in sealed jars, has however observed a taper to burn brightly when plunged into the air contained in such a jar at the end of twenty-four hours. There could therefore have been little or no respiration through the skin or otherwise for the period in question. Fishes are not usually supposed to hibernate in the true sense, but many bottom fish certainly sink into a state of torpor during the winter months in our ponds and rivers. Fish may sometimes be seen frozen in blocks of ice, and they are generally supposed to be killed by such conditions, but although it seems strange that it should be so, they undoubtedly often revive and recover their normal activity when the ice thaws.

It seems to be the opinion of most

observers that the two conditions which serve to bring on the state of winter sleep and torpidity are failure of food-supply and fall of temperature with the approach of winter. Even this, however, cannot be affirmed as true in all cases. Some animals retire to their winter sleep when food is abundant, and the beginning of hibernation in others appears to be often independent of climate or temperature. Animals, like the marmot or the common squirrel, which usually hibernate, may often be kept in full activity all the year round if the conditions are favorable. There can be no doubt that all forms of winter sleep are protective in their character and help the species in its struggle for existence under adverse surroundings. But it seems very likely that rhythm lies at the root of the adaptation and that winter sleep, just as ordinary sleep, is essentially a rhythmic diminution of the activities of the body.

It is a remarkable fact that while there is in all cases of true winter torpidity a cessation or slowing down of certain of the vital functions, other functions appear to be little diminished, and some to be even greatly increased in activity. In nearly all cases there is a great reduction in the secretions from the body. In bats they nearly entirely cease. The same is true of bears, which are said often to have the end of the alimentary canal entirely closed. Yet some of the internal functions of nutrition continue. Although the animals retire to rest in good condition, they are generally thin on resuming activity and the emaciation as a rule increases rapidly at first on awaking. Frogs convert their stored-up material into eggs, well nourished and ready to be deposited as spawn when they wake up in the spring and before they feed. The feThe Outlook.

male bear also produces her cubs during winter. While sensation and volition are usually dormant, there is a class of function which seems to be in a state of high activity during the torpor of hibernating animals. Muscular irritability is greatly increased. The slightest touch to the quills on the spine of a torpid hedgehog induces a movement of inspiration. The same effect follows from a slight stimulus to the wing of a hibernating bat. When the marmot is in a state of winter torpor he is far more sensitive to slight stimuli, such as blowing on the hairs of the skin, than when merely sleeping. It is possible that this is not so much a proof of muscular irritability as an indication that all the reflex mechanism of the animal is more excitable. It may be a result, that is to say, which follows simply because unconsciousness is SO profound. The brain is so entirely dormant that the inhibition which, to a certain extent, it always exercises on some of the activities of the spinal cord is absent. Some animals, if suddenly awakened from the hibernating condition, speedily die. As the accession of torpidity is gradual in natural conditions, so also must the awakening be to avoid injury. Yet even in the profoundest winter sleep of animals there appears to be a kind of protective sub-consciousness which remains on the alert. Hibernating bats in cold weather maintain a temperature of a few degrees above freezingpoint. But if the temperature is greatly reduced they are found to awake, and if it continues to fall they freeze to death, a result which often happens. A large proportion indeed of the creatures which hibernate never regain consciousness with the returning spring.

From Lt.-Col. Maldemar to Sir Wilson Phillimore, M.D.

I.

Hôtel Superbe, Nice, March 15, 1907. My dear Phillimore,-I am here, in fairly comfortable quarters. The journey was tiring, but I think we have now recovered from the effects. I say "we," but Mrs. Maldemar is a traveller whom nothing can fatigue. The only thing that worries me is your ukase against stimulants. I don't think you really understand how necessary a little stimulant-only a little-has been to me, and to stop them suddenly and completely in this way may, according to a medical treatise which I have been reading, be a dangerous thing. Will you not reconsider this part of your treatment, and name some light and harmless wine that I may take? There is a very dry light champagne in this hotel which the Maître d'Hôtel tells me is a favorite with dyspeptics. Please let me know at your earliest convenience, if possible by wire.

Yours very gratefully,

II.

Hector Maldemar.

Hôtel Superbe, Nice, March 21. My dear Phillimore,-I am sorry that you feel so strongly about my total abstinence. I think you ought to know that I met at lunch to-day a very delightful and well-informed man, a retired Indian Civil servant, who seems to have had very much the same kind of turn that I have, and you know, of course, what India is when a man has a good liver, to say nothing of any one predisposed to dyspepsia. Well, I was astonished to see him drinking claret freely, and he said that, prejudicial as

he finds all other wines and spirits, claret has never done him any harm, and is allowed by his medical adviser. It seems to me that he and I resemble each other very closely-so closely, in fact, that there would probably be no harm in my adopting his régime. But of course I do not care to do so without your sanction.

I am, yours sincerely,

Hector Maldemar.

III.

Hôtel Superbe, Nice, March 25. My dear Phillimore,-I am sorry about the claret. Since I wrote I have met another man, at the English Club here, whose capacity to digest is practically nil, and yet he was putting away whiskey and seltzer with perfect composure and confidence. He had three during one rubber, and when I left in order, by your rules, to be in bed by halfpast ten (an infernal bore), he was beginning another. From the few words I was able to get with him between the games, I should say that his case was as like mine as two peas. This being so, don't you think might try, say, one whiskey and seltzer every day? Life is very dull as things are, especially as Mrs. Maldemar will not (as I certainly should were she confined to water as I am) give up her halfbottle of champagne at lunch and dinner.

Yours despondently,

Hector Maldemar. P.S.-I am very flat, and my ital processes seem to me dangerously slow.

IV.

Hôtel Superbe, Nice, March 26. Dear Phillimore,-One meets with kindred sufferers in strange places.