372 MUSCARDINIDAE—MUSCARDINUS 
animal. It emits, however, when frightened, a slight hissing,’ 
described also as a ‘“‘querulous cry,”® or, when expressing 
anger, a violent piping sound.* A “low whistling ” is attributed 
to it by Mr Richard Kearton,* who has heard woodmen call it 
the “ Singing Mouse.” 
Gough’s specimen mentioned above must have survived for 
about four years in captivity, as also did one kept by Capt. 
Hadfield. This period exceeds anything in the experience of 
the authorities of the Zoological Gardens,’ where seventeen 
individuals had an average longevity of only three and a half, 
and a maximum of only thirteen months. 
There are not many superstitions connected with this 
animal, although the older writers of pharmacies held some 
remarkable views in regard to its efficacy as a constituent in 
prescriptions. The majority, if not all, of these notions were 
based upon foreign beliefs applied to foreign species. Topsel, 
for instance, whose work is usually such a fertile hunting- 
ground for those in search of quaint information, does not 
appear to have known the British Dormouse, and Mr Millais 
quotes the German writer, Dr F. Helm,’ without, however, 
noticing that he wrote of the Garden Dormouse of con- 
tinental Europe. 
[The “ Button-Mouse” of Orkney, reported to Baikkie and 
Heddle (15, footnote) as being only 2 ins. long and 
‘frequently found asleep rolled up in the shape of a ball,” was 
thought by Forsyth Major (Zool. Garten, May 1905, 129-138), 
though on slight evidence, to be possibly a “ Birkenmaus” of 
the genus Szcesta (Gray, 1827, antedating Szinthus, Nathusius, 
1839). This genus ranges from Central Asia to Denmark 
and South-eastern Norway, where the species is S. ¢vzzona of 
Petényi. It belongs to the family Zafodzde, and is characterised 
by external murine appearance, but has 4 +4 upper cheek-teeth, 
the crowns with two rows of tubercles arranged longitudinally. | 
1 Lataste, of. czt., 44. 2 Mayne Reid, of. cz¢., 104. 3 Rabus, of. cit. 
4 The Fairyland of Living Things, 1907, 83. 5 Fide Rope, op. cit., 1885, 213. 
® See P. Chalmers Mitchell “On Longevity and Relative Viability in Mammals 
and Birds,” in Proc. Zool. Soc., London, June 1911, 447. This Dormouse is not 
mentioned in Max Schmidt’s paper “On the Duration of Life of the Animals in the 
Zoological Garden at Frankfort-on-the-Main,” in Proc, cét., 20th April 1880, 299-319. 
* Zool. Garten, 1887, 217-219, translated in Zoologist, 1888, 14-16. 
