OF DIPUS, OR JERBOA. 121 



Indian-corn. Notwithftanding the great difproportion in 

 the length of its legs, it runs up trees, in the hollows of 

 which it is often found. In fuch trees, it lays up ftores 

 of Indian-corn. It moves by leaping. Its leaps are con- 

 fiderable. It often jumps at lea(l: one yard and a half at 

 a time. 



i have not learned, with certainty, at what time this 

 animal brings forth its young. But it has been feen leaping 

 about with the young ones If rongly attached to its teats *. 

 Four young ones have been feen thus attached. The 

 Indians affert that this Dipus breeds very faft. 



Cats kill, but will very feldom eat, this animal. 



I cannot fay, with certainty, whether the Uipus Ameri- 

 canus belongs to that clafs of mammalia, which Fallas has 

 named Species Letbargicce^ oi animals which are tor- 

 pid, or afleep, during the winter feafon. Gmeli i fays 

 that all the fpecies of Dipus hybernate -f-. But, perhaps, 

 this alfertion ought not to have been made. The torpid 

 Hate of animals appears to be merely an accidental cir- 

 cumftance, depending principally upon climate, and part- 

 ly upon the fpecilic purity of the air, in vvhich the ani- 

 mal is placed. Be this, however, as it may, it is certain 

 that many of the fame fpecies of animals which become 

 torpid in one country do not become fo in another. This 

 fact is very obfervable in the United-States. Many 

 fpecies of animals which hybernate in Pennfylvania, and 

 other more northern parts of the country, do not hyber- 



* My friend Mr. John HeckewelJer, in a letter to me, has cmniuni- 

 catcd the following information : " There is a l;ind of mice, in the Wellprn- 

 Coitntiy, of a larger fize than cur common houfe-mice, and w ith a (hort 

 tail, about an ir.cli long, which run about with their young naked and 

 blind, (licking to the teatf. I have caught them, and placed them in a 

 box, where I put hay, deer's hair, &c. for a neft, and have fed them r.:- 

 gu'.aily, for days together, and never could obferve one of them at liberty 

 from the teat, until they became of a good fize." From the length of the 

 tail of (his animal, it cannot be the Dipus Americanus. 



f *' Myoxi omnes hybcrnaiU it dipoats." Syftema NaVvira', torn. i. p. 157. 



nate 



