ANIMALS IN COLD WEATHER

New Zealand Tablet, 27 April 1911, Page 789

ANIMALS IN COLD WEATHER

, iT 1 ?! w i? d animal that minds . cold the least is undoubtedly the rabbit. Indeed, it is said that the rabbit is, of all warm-blooded creatures, the most capable of withstanding very low temperatures; ' A rabbit which had got into % block of ice was imprisoned there twelve hours. hen freedom was finally secured it began*almost instantly to. teed. Hares, . too, can stand a lot of cold so long as they can get food The Alpine hare, which is found in +S. mbeil + , f d and Scotland, never seems inconvenienced by the woist frosts. The Arctic fox is another creature which no degree of cold seems to bother. It is one of the very few animals of theoretic regions which does not hibernate 7 Of domestic animals, sheep come first as cold resisters In bi rtf rd which swept England in 1891, sheep were dug out of the drifts where they had been buried twenty-' four oays. hey were still alive. 1 Next to sheep in cold weather hardiness come - goats and then .pigs/ Among the birds, thrushes and blackbirds seem able to endure less cold than the finch tribe of which the house sparrow 's the commonest type. The hedge sparrow appears, of all birds’ to be the most affected by cold. Perch enjoy ’ cold weather and freezes, -comfortably making, their winter homes in lakes that are frozen practically solid. m