On the Control of the Level of Activity of the Animal Body

Abstract

Hibernation and the other seasonal variations of activity in the vertebrate have been the subject of a very large amount of investigation and of an even larger literature. This has been recently summarised by Pocock (1926) from the standpoint of general biology, and by Gorer (1931) from that of comparative physiology. Here, it is only necessary to discuss previous work on those aspects of the subject with which this paper is immediately concerned.