THE DORMOUSE OR SLEEPER 367 
the onset of hibernation is postponed, litters may be born in 
the winter." Monsieur Lataste concludes that the period of 
gestation is about three weeks,” and since captives will pair 
about every ten days, and the young are independent of their 
mother by about the twenty-fourth day, there is plenty of time 
for a series of litters between May and November. To 
produce young in the middle of May the mice must have 
paired shortly after concluding their hibernation. 
The young at birth have the eyes and ears closed, and are 
destitute of hair. One born in the cages of Monsieur Lataste, 
opened its eyes on about the eighteenth® day, and on the 
nineteenth moved out of the nest for the first time and 
began to eat. When twenty-one days old, it attained the 
characteristic aspect of its race. It now began to climb about 
its cage; on the twenty-fourth day it differed from its parents 
chiefly in its lesser size. 
If disturbed, the female, like other mammals, will sometimes 
remove her young by the scruff of the neck in her mouth, and 
Mr Grabham has photographed one in the act; such removals 
are, however, believed to be of rare occurrence. 
By the end of September the Dormouse becomes exceedingly 
fat. In October or November, having built its winter or 
hibernating nest, and laid up a store of food either beside or 
in its bed, each animal retires separately, and curling itself up 
into a ball, with its fore paws against its cheeks and its tail 
wrapped round its head and back, passes into torpidity. 
The winter nest is usually constructed of moss, under an 
accumulation of leaves, it may be 2 feet thick, and placed in a 
hollow of the ground protected by roots of trees or stones. 
It may occupy a cavity in a tree-stump, sound or rotten, but 
frequently lies underground.’ Quite often the hibernaculum 
differs neither in structure nor situation from a summer dormi- 
1 Three young soon after Christmas, in captivity (L. A. Dunnage, /ie/d, 4th 
February 1905, 190; see also Fve/d, 8th November 1873, 485). 
? Op. cit.; he states that in E/iomys gestation lasts twenty-two days, and cestrum 
recurs about every ten days. 
3 A very late date compared with a rabbit or mouse (see above, p. 211), perhaps 
because eyesight might lead to premature attempts to leave the nest. 
4 See above, p. 361, under wezghz. 
5 As deep as 2 feet (Frances Pitt, S.). In 1904 Millais saw forty discovered 
amongst the fibrous roots of rhododendrons at Warnham Court, Sussex. 
