R I C E T U S. 



169 



canal, which is the true entrance to the burrow. These 

 two canals conduct to a greater or less number of par- 

 ticular excavations of a circular form, which, accord- 

 ing to the age of the animal, are from about one to 

 five feet in diameter, and communicate together by 

 horizontal conduits. One of these excavations is the 

 retreat of the hamster ; it is furnished with a good bed 

 of dry herbs, and it is here that the females bring 

 forth. The other excavations constitute the maga- 

 zines of provision. 



Every animal has its own burrow. The males have 

 usually but two openings to theirs. The females form 

 several by vertical conduits, especially when they 

 have young ones. The burrows of the old indivi- 

 duals sometimes embrace a considerable extent; they 

 descend to four or five feet in depth, and frequently 

 contain many bushels of corn and other grain. They 

 are sought out with great care, as much to collect 

 what they contain, as to destroy the animals which 

 form them, and which, when they are numerous, cause 

 great devastation in the harvest. In the environs of 

 Gotha, it is said, that in a single year eighty thousand 

 of these have been killed ; they are discovered by the 

 quantity of earth accumulated at the entrance of their 

 oblique excavation. These rodentia are not merely 

 granivorous, they will also eat rlesh, and often devour 

 one another when they meet. Thus it is that, like 

 the most ferocious animals, they live in a solitary 

 manner, and never seek each other but at the season of 

 love. Tlie particulars of their reproduction are not 

 precisely known. The rut, it would appear, takes 

 place many times during the spring, summer, and 

 autumn months ,- the gestation of the females lasts 

 four weeks, and occurs three or four times in the year ; 

 there are usually fro:n six to twelve young ones, which, 

 after a very short lactation, quit the mother to go and 

 dig, each for itself, a burrow, and live by their own 

 resources. These notices apply to 



The COMMON HAMSTER ( Mas cricctm of Linnaeus); 

 but the animal is so numerous that a little more 

 minute description may not be improper, and in the 

 first place the characters of the teeth : of the three 

 grinders with which each side of both jaws are fur- 

 nished, the first in the upper jaw has three pairs of 

 roots, and three pairs of tubercles divided by trans- 

 verse furrows ; the second has two pairs of roots, and 

 two pairs of tubercles. The first in the lower jaw has 

 five roots and five tubercles, and the two which fol- 

 low in this jaw have fovir roots and four tubercles. 

 The crowns of the teeth are, however, liable to be 

 worn down with age ; but, from their peculiar struc- 

 ture, and their numerous insertions into the jaws, the 

 teeth of these little animals are very powerful for their 

 size, so that they can readily bruise and divide the 

 very hardest of vegetable substances. The eyes are 

 rather small, very round, have a rounded pupil, and 

 stand prominent. The ears are large, and rounded 

 in the naked part. The nostrils open on the sides 

 of a small muzzle, divided by a vertical furrow, which 

 is prolonged across the upper lip ; and the lower lip 

 is so small that it scarcely covers the incisive teeth. 

 The size is nearly the same as that of the brown rat, 

 and the chief differences, except in colour, are, that 

 the head is considerably larger, and the tail much 

 shorter. The front, the upper part of the head, the 

 sides of the body, and the upper part of the rump, are 

 dull yellow, mixed with ash colour, the hairs being 

 annulated with yellow and ash, and black at the points. 

 The sides of the head and neck, the lower parts of 



i the flanks, the outside of the thighs, and the 

 lower part of the rump, are reddish. The point 

 of the muzzle, the lower part of the cheeks, and the 

 feet, are of a very pale yellow, of which colour there 

 are three large spots on each side of the animal. The 

 throat, the breast, part of the fore legs, the inside of 

 the thighs and legs, are deep maroon, passing into 

 black. 



There is something very remarkable in the accumu- 

 lation of fat upon this animal. As it inhabits exposed 

 and arid places, where but little rain falls during the 

 summer months, it might be expected not to accumu- 

 late external fat, like the bears which live in covert, 

 and the marmots which, as mountaineers, live near 

 the snow, and are subjected to the variable weather of 

 the alpine summer. But, contrary to the usual habits of 

 animals which are understood to hybernate, the ham- 

 ster is found with a much greater quantity of fat, in- 

 ternally, in the spring months than in the autumn 



This has been ascertained by direct observation of 

 the most careful naturalists, who have had the best 

 opportunities, and, therefore, it must be received as 

 a truth ; and, when along with this, we take into 

 consideration the hoarding propensities of this animal, 

 the argument against its hybernating is considerably 

 strengthened. We believe, also, that few of the in- 

 habitants of low and open places, have a hybernating 

 character, though many of them keep to their burrows 

 during the winter ; and we have the evidence of hares 

 and some other rodent animals in our own country, 

 which do not lay up stores of provisions, as proofs 

 that they are in best condition during the s\ inter. The 

 hamster digs its burrow to a considerable depth ; and 

 it is generally in soils which are sandy, or otherwise 

 so formed as that the cold of winter does not pene- 

 trate them very deeply ; and as, when the storm 

 breaks, the transition is from cold to heat at once, 

 without any of those prolonged contests between 

 spring and winter which render more alpine climates 

 so trying to animals, we may, perhaps, conclude that 

 the hamster does not actually hybernate, though it re- 

 mains in a state of inactivity, and thus not only exists 

 but gets fat upon its accumulated store during the 

 cold weather. In Siberia, during the months of March 

 and April, when the temperature of the atmosphere 

 was very cold, Pallas found that hamsters taken out 

 of their holes had a heat of J0;3" of Fahrenheit's ther- 

 mometer; and that others which were dug out from 

 under the frozen earth, in the very depth of winter, 

 had a temperature equal to that of the human body in 

 health, or varying from 91 to 99. 



These are curious facts, and can hardly be recon- 

 ciled with the notion of dormancy during the winter, 

 although that were not doubtful upon the analogy 

 above stated, that animals of the exposed plains are 

 less exposed to hybernation than those which inhabit 

 more sheltered places. As this is rather an important 

 point, we shall lay before the reader, some of the evi- 

 dences as derived from the observation of animals 

 which are known to hybernate. The celebrated Hunter 

 informs us, on the authority of Jenner, that the tem- 

 perature of a hedgehog, in the cavity of the abdomen 

 towards the pelvis, was 95, and at the diaphragm was 

 97 of Fahrenheit, in summer, when the thermometer 

 in the shade stood at 78. Professor Mangili states 

 the ordinary heat of the hedgehog a little lower, at 

 27 of Reaumur, or about 93 Fahrenheit. In winter, 

 according to Jenner, the temperature of the air being 

 44, and the animal torpid, the heat in the pelvis was 



