296 CHAPTER XLL 



are easily tamed, and make interesting pets. We kept 

 a number of them in a recess covered with wire gauze : 

 it is about six feet high by four broad, and fairly deep ; 

 a regular "glirarium." It is fitted with ladders, and 

 a rope hangs from the top : up and down this they 

 run with perfect ease ; in fact, they are so completely 

 arboreal in their habits that they seldom visit the 

 ground. 



These animals are of extraordinary activity : I 

 have seen one spring from a chestnut tree to a tele- 

 graph wire, run along this at full speed, erect, not 

 after the manner of a sloth ; then dart into another 

 tree which stood in the path of the wire. When con- 

 fined in a small cage they turn somersaults with great 

 rapidity, just as squirrels do ; in fact this Myoxus 

 comes very near to a squirrel both in habits and 

 appearance. It is difficult to learn anything about 

 them from the natives : they are eatable ; that is the 

 only fact they know or care to know. Accordingly 

 they shoot great numbers of them ; I suppose that if 

 they did not do so, few chestnuts would be left, or 

 walnuts. In Herculaneum the cages have been found 

 in which these animals were kept and fattened, for 

 they were considered a delicacy by the Romans. 



When they hear any one coming, they run to the 

 cage door to be let out ; then they clirnb all over us, 

 as they would on trees. They will spring fearlessly 

 through the air from one person to another, and they 

 do this very gracefully. One, which we did not con- 

 sider a good jumper, sprang from one chair-back to 

 another ; I found the distance to be three feet, that is, 

 six times the length of its body, and I judge, by the 

 ease with which he took the leap, that he could clear 



