200 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



often share the same retreat. During the 

 greater part of the day the jerboas remain 

 hidden in their subterranean homes. They will, 

 however, occasionally emerge for a short time, 

 even during hot sunshine, and captive specimens 

 will snatch a little food at such times. At night 

 they become very active, leaping and running 

 with great rapidity : they retain their liveliness 

 till daylight, when the early traveller may see the 

 desert alive with jerboas, scudding in all directions. 

 Ain Chegga, a caravanserai 6 1 kilometres from the 

 oasis of Biskra, on the northern edge of the Sahara 

 Desert, is famous for its jerboas, which abound 

 in the vast treeless basin where the caravanserai 

 stands.^ These animals are said to be good 

 eating, and are much appreciated by the Arabs, 

 who take them by stopping up three of the 

 entrances to their underground nest, and netting 

 the fourth : on the central apartment being 

 broken into, the animals bolt into the netted 

 burrow, and are easily taken. The fennec fox 

 and the caracal lynx are said to prey largely 

 on these little rodents. 



The first jerboa brought alive to England 

 appears to have been the specimen — living in 



1 In 1903 I found the country surrounding the oasis to be almost 

 absolutely sterile, save for a scanty covering of dwarfed bushes : 

 the traveller crosses many dried-up watercourses, and observes 

 numerous ranges of barren, rocky hills. In these regions the 

 Egyptian jerboa (or an allied species) not only maintains life, but is 

 exceedingly abundant. 



