366 MUSCARDINIDAE—MUSCARDINUS 
for years, and their nests were always placed within 100 yards 
of a previous one. Mr Forrest has observed! the method of 
building in a captive. Seizing each piece of grass by the 
middle in its mouth, it dived into the nest-box, and, turning 
over repeatedly, laid the bent round the cavity, at the same 
time smoothing it and rounding it outwards. 
It is generally stated that there are most frequently four 
young, but since there are eight teats, larger numbers may be 
expected. A litter of seven, still blind, was found on 8th 
October 1912 in Mr Cocks’s wood at Skirmett, Buckingham- 
shire,’ and others of six* and five* have been reported ; some- 
times there are only two young, and probably the earlier litters 
are smaller than those of the late summer. 
There is some dispute about the sexual season. One view 
is that, like hedgehogs, dormice are polycestrous (as they 
certainly are in captivity), with two breeding seasons, a litter of 
young being born early in the summer, followed by a second in 
the autumn. Thus Thomas Bell® received, from one locality 
in September, an adult, one about half-grown, and three very 
young, which he judged to be not older than a fortnight or 
three weeks. Messrs Cocks and Forrest have voiced another 
view, namely, that autumnal litters are the rule. In this they 
are partially supported by Monsieur H. Gadeau de Kerrville, 
who states that in Normandy births take place habitually in 
August, with, perhaps, in favourable seasons, a first litter in 
June. Against this, Monsieur Lataste received a Swiss female 
which bore young on tst June 1882, and there are British 
records for various dates from the middle of May® to 
October ; so that it is possible that the breeding season may 
last throughout the period of activity. In captivity, when 
1 Zoologist, 1901. 2 MS. ,; the eyes had opened by 13th October. 
3 Half-grown, near Basingstoke, Hampshire, September 1906 (Owen Jones, Fie/d, 
22nd September 1906, 540). 
4 In nest, Shropshire, 15th September 1903 (Forrest, 47S.). 5 Ed. 2, 284. 
6 Wright (47S., per Adams) found a litter supposed to be two or three weeks old 
on 2nd June 1909, z.e., born 12th to 19th May, and a Northamptonshire nest contain- 
ing two young on Sth June; as their eyes were open on the 11th they must have been 
born, according to Lataste’s observations quoted below, about eighteen days earlier, 
or on the 24th of May. In the Forest of Guines, Pas de Calais, France, Oldfield 
Thomas took five blind and naked young on 20th May 1894 ; see Barrett-Hamilton, 
Proc. Zool. Soc. (London), 6th February 1900, 86. A midsummer instance for young 
with closed eyes is 26th July (Heatley Noble, 27 /iz.). 
