580 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HAMSTER. 



ever in catching it again, and found that it had sustained no 

 other injury. 



As to the physiological points which appear to be most 

 closely related to the hybernation, they are, 1st, the great de- 

 velopment of the venous in proportion to the arterial system ; 

 2ndly, the peculiar composition of the blood, which never per- 

 fectly coagulates, the more solid parts retaining a certain de- 

 gree of fluidity, and the more watery portion not becoming 

 transparent and nearly colourless, as in most other animals, 

 but constituting a crimson-coloured fluid ; when the hamster 

 is torpid, these qualities of the blood exist to a greater degree 

 than in summer : and lastly, the condition of the fat, which, 

 as in other winter-sleepers, for instance, the badger, hedge- 

 hog, dormouse, bat &c. is oily, and chiefly composed of elaine. x 



Injury and Use. — As the hamsters consume a great quan- 

 tity of valuable green fodder as well as corn, from the time it 

 begins to ripen, during spring, summer, and autumn, — and as 

 an old one sometimes lays up a winter store of 1 cwt. of 

 horse-beans, or 65 lbs. of corn, &c, which is lost to the pro- 

 prietor or farmer, it may be imagined what a calamity this 

 animal must be to the agricultural population, where the soil 

 is favorable to its excessive multiplication, and where no ex- 

 traordinary means are resorted to, in order to check its pro- 

 pagation. It is true that nature herself puts a stop to the 

 hamsters 1 multiplying to an indefinite extent, by epizootics, 

 or other causes, which cannot be precisely determined ; 2 but 

 she does so much later than the interest of man requires. — 

 The parishes which are much infested with this nuisance, 

 have therefore, from an early period, paid premiums out of 

 their public money for dead hamsters which were brought to 

 the proper office. Latterly this has been done in several do- 

 minions of Germany with more regularity, and more systemat- 

 ically than before ; and as 1 think it will interest the readers 

 of this journal, I shall communicate here an extract from the 

 official records kept at the mansion-house of Goth a, and com- 

 prehending a period of twenty-one years. It commences in 

 1817, when a general crusade was undertaken, which had the 



1 Haller's opinion, that the right auricle of the heart loses its sensibility 

 latest, among all the organs, is confirmed in a striking manner in the in- 

 stance of the hamster. If, in a living hamster, the heart he exposed by 

 laying open the chest, it will continue to heat for about seven minutes, then 

 become motionless for a short time, whereupon the right auricle begins to 

 beat alone, the pulsations being at first about 110 in a minute, continuing 

 for an hour and a half or even two hours, and becoming gradually slower, 

 till at last only two are observed within a minute. 



2 Migrations of this animal have never been observed, as far as I know ; 

 but in some vears it is scarce, without the cause being known. 



