1296 THE RODENTS 



burrow always comprises a large dwelling chamber, situated at a depth of from one to 

 two yards below the surface of the ground, with a nearly perpendicular entrance 

 passage and an oblique exit. There is also a store chamber or granary communicat- 

 ing with the dwelling chamber by means of a gallery, and it appears that the young, 

 the females, and the males generally occupy distinct burrows, which may be distin- 

 guished by the size of their entrance passages, those of the males being the largest. 

 When a burrow is tenanted, the passages are kept scrupulously clean, and the pres- 

 ence of any litter in them would at once proclaim that the habitation was deserted; 

 chaff and straw may, however, be generally seen near the entrance of a burrow. 

 Although the entrance passage goes nearly straight down into the earth, it also has 

 a turn before opening into the dwelling chamber, and in old burrows the entrance 

 and exit passages are polished smooth by the constant friction of the coats of their 

 occupants. Of the chambers, the dwelling place is the smaller, and has smooth 

 walls and the floor strewn with fine straw; it has three apertures two communi- 

 cating with the exterior, and the third with the granary. Young hamsters have but 

 a single granary in their burrows, but the old males, which spend the whole summer 

 collecting, frequently have from three to five such chambers. These are completely 

 filled with corn, the passage communicating with the dwelling chamber being fre- 

 quently stopped up with earth. All kinds of corn are equally acceptable to these 

 industrious little animals, and it will often be found that, while one part of the 

 store chamber is filled with grain of a particular kind, the other portion may contain 

 a different sort. In addition to corn, which forms their main winter nutriment, 

 hamsters in summer eat peas, beans, roots, fruits, grass, and other green herbage, 

 and in captivity these animals will eat almost any kind of food that is put before 

 them. 



Burrows of the nature described above are constructed solely for winter use, and 

 when the weather becomes cold in October the hamsters retire to their innermost 

 recesses for their hibernation; the entrance and exit of each burrow being then 

 closed with earth. In February or March the animals awake from their slumbers, 

 although they do not for some time open their burrows, where they remain feeding 

 upon the stores of corn. About the middle of March the adult males make their 

 first appearance abroad, and these are followed early in April by the females. At 

 this time they devour ravenously almost anything that comes before them, not refus- 

 ing an occasional young bird, a mouse, or a beetle. Soon afterward they set about 

 constructing their summer burrows, on the completion of which the sexes pair. 

 These summer burrows are of simpler construction than the winter habitations, be- 

 ing seldom more than one or two feet in depth. Usually these burrows contain but 

 a single chamber of about a foot in diameter. In the case of the females the nest 

 chamber has one exit passage, but from two to eight entrances; although until the 

 young go afield but one of the latter is used; the advantage of these numerous 

 entrances when there is a large number of young being sufficiently obvious. The 

 nest chamber is furnished with a bed of soft hay. Toward the end of April the 

 males visit the burrows of the females, and if two individuals of them should hap- 

 pen to meet in the same domicile, a fierce encounter ensues, the hamster, for its size, 

 being an extremely ferocious and quarrelsome animal. In from four to five weeks 



