Show XOCTl RIVAL AM3IALS The true nocturnal animals are those which can only find their food at night With the exception of the I owls and opossums which are partly niasetilreirous they are iioairly all insect in-sect eaters baits lemurs lorises and nightjars and though the last like the owls do move with some rapidity and some precision when once disturbed dis-turbed the others might be distinguished distin-guished from those creatures which are only nocturnal by necessity by the absence of that wakefulness in Sleep which the latter possess in such a marked degree The bats lemurs and lorises are during the day steeped steep-ed and drugged with slumber If once discovered they make no effort ef-fort to escape like l the opossums which I let the black fellows chop them out of their holes in the hollow trees without moving from their sleep lag places it does not seem possible for them to awaken Light benumbs I their faculties like freezing cold and they seek darkness with the same instinct j I in-stinct that a human being with senses benumbed by sickness demands more light Bats the only purely nocturnal animals in this country show this characteristic in its compietest form Their daylight sleep paralyzes them though not because they are unable to see and fly with safety in the sunlight far they can do bath But if handled I and disturbed they make no effort even to spread their wings and seem I unable to shake off > the drowsy influence influ-ence Not even the great nightflying I motha are so completely the slaves of this unyielding habit of diurnal sleep Contracted with this deep repose the slumber of the great body of herbivorous herbivor-ous animals is so light and broken that it may be doubted whether their senses are ever so complerely at rest as to deserve the name of sleep at all In human sleep the sense of hearing Is that which remains awake longest and to which the brain most readily responds But in sound aid heavy sleep hearing often suggests a long train of thought in dreams before the brain awakens to a sen = 3 of reality In most sleeping animals its warning Is instantaneous and the faculties obey the call for action with no apparent appar-ent interval of inertia The Spectator |