NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HAMSTER. 579 



respiration returns at long intervals ; the heart contracts only 

 fourteen or fifteen times in a minute ; whereas, in the animal 

 when awake, it does so at least one hundred and fifty times. 

 The blood is far more bright and fluid than in summer, and 

 its surface is covered with oily spots. The intestines are mo- 

 tionless, and neither alcohol nor sulphuric acid are able to 

 make them contract : they are partly filled with chyme and 

 excrements. The fat is rather solid, and the bladder partly 

 filled with urine. A torpid hamster may be carried in the 

 pocket for miles from the fields without awaking. If brought 

 into a moderately warm room it gradually awakes : the feet 

 by degrees assume a more natural position ; the breathing 

 begins with deep and rare inspirations ; the animal is then 

 sensible to stimuli of various kinds ; it stretches itself, utters 

 a disagreeable rattling sound, and at last opens its eyes. It 

 then totters about as if intoxicated, and frequently falls on 

 one side in trying to attain a sitting posture. When this point 

 has been gained it remains quiet for a while, then walks about 

 and directly begins to eat if food be thrown before it. The 

 time in which they become perfectly awake in a moderately 

 warm room, is two hours in very cold weather, when their 

 sleep is proportionately sound, but much less in warm weather. 

 The principal external cause of the torpidity of the ham- 

 ster is the lowness of the temperature of the medium in which 

 it happens to be. Underground a temperature of + 6° or 7° 

 Reaum. is competent to effect it ; when kept in a box above 

 ground, the animal will fall asleep at a temperature of +5° 

 R., but awake from time to time. In heated rooms the state 

 of torpidity never takes place ; but although the hamster will 

 thus sometimes live through the winter, it is drowsy, ill, and 

 often dies. It is evident that the closing of the burrows, by 

 which the external agents are in a great measure excluded, 

 must be instrumental in bringing about the torpid state much 

 earlier than it would otherwise take place. Then, I suspect, 

 the influence of the earth itself has a similar tendency ; this 

 opinion I may support by the following observation. In my 

 youth, in company with a few more boys, I once gave chase 

 to a pair of dormice [Myoxus nitela). We secured one, the 

 other entered a hole in the slope of a sandy hill. I went home 

 to fetch the necessary instruments and returned in about half 

 an hour, and after digging only a length of a few feet, I found 

 the dormouse fast asleep, though the burrow continued much 

 farther. Thinking I had killed the animal with the pickaxe, 

 I took it carefully in my hand, when, after having handled it 

 a short time, it made its escape so rapidly that only the skin 

 of its tail remained between my fingers. I succeeded how- 



