584 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HAMSTER. 



after her, and quarter is no longer granted her. If the heap 

 before the creeping-hole be very large, and mixed with much 

 chaff and pieces of straw, — and if a well-trodden plunging- 

 hole exist at the distance of six feet or more, — the burrow 

 belongs to an old male ; and the hamster- digger exults in the 

 prospect of a good prize. If the season be not far advanced, 

 the people possess themselves only of the stores, sparing the 

 old knowing fellow, not out of gratitude, but that he may col- 

 lect another store that very season. No legislation, unless 

 incompatible with true justice can prevent the hamster-dig- 

 gers from doing what they think most profitable to them- 

 selves, so far as the killing or sparing of the animals is con- 

 cerned. x 



The hamsters are also easily caught in traps set before their 

 holes. The different kinds of rat-traps will answer the pur- 

 pose with more certainty for the hamster than for the rat, the 

 former being far less cautious. The trap in most general use 

 is a pot dug into the ground, the cover of which shuts when 

 the hamster enters to take the bait. There is also a very sim- 

 ple trap, the construction of which is founded on the irritable 

 disposition of the hamster. In the middle of a board ten 

 inches square, is made a hole four inches in diameter. A 

 strong nail projects from each side of the board, near the rim 

 of the hole ; the sharp points of the nails are bent into the 

 hole, so as to be opposite each other, with a distance of about 

 two inches between them. There are nooses at the four cor- 

 ners of the board, which is fixed over the plunging-hole by 

 means of pegs driven into the ground. In trying to leave or 

 to enter its burrow, the hamster glides over one of the nails 

 and is pricked by the other, upon which the animal gets into 

 a passion, and in rushing violently backwards, after having 

 been repeatedly wounded by the point opposite, he is impaled 

 by the nail over which he first glided. 



The animal may also be forced to leave its burrow by pour- 

 ing into it a large quantity of water, which is perhaps the 

 most convenient method, if a large tun or a cart can be had, 

 and the object be merely to destroy the animal, without ob- 

 taining its stores. 



Weimar, August 25th, 1839. 



1 The laws which were given for the cercles of Magdeburg and Halber- 

 stadt, in August 1696 and May 1714, were more arbitrary. The proprietors 

 were ordered to deliver at the justice's, each year, fifteen hamster-skins for 

 every rood (30 acres) of land ; and the cottagers had each to furnish ten 

 skins. For every skin that was wanting in these numbers, they had to pay 

 a fine of 2 groschen. 



