342 PET ANIMALS. 



before they can be kept thus, otherwise by their continual efforts to 

 escape they are liable to strangle themselves ; but the best way after 

 all, when they are thoroughly tamed, is to let them have the range 

 of the room, or to purchase a cage six feet long and four feet high ; 

 in this there will be room enough, and it ought to have perches like 

 the branches of trees. The cage should be cleaned out regularly 

 every day, to prevent its getting offensive, and a little gravel 

 sprinkled on the bottom. The sleeping- box should be furnished 

 with some sweet hay, moss, &c., with a little wool, about the 

 breeding time. 



They should be kept on the same sort of food they obtain when in 

 their natural state; bread and milk may also be added, but it must 

 be perfectly fresh and sweet. They may be purchased of most bird- 

 fanciers for about four or five shillings; when very tame higher 

 prices are asked, sometimes as much as fifteen shillings or a sove- 

 reign. Numbers are also brought up to London by country market 

 people, and sold about the streets at more moderate charges. 



In purchasing, care should be taken to select a young one, which 

 can be readily distinguished by its beautiful white teeth, for when 

 the animal is old the teeth are yellow. 



THE DORMOUSE. 



THIS is a very clean, handsome little animal, whatever people may 

 say to the contrary, and is a great pet with boys in the country; it 

 has also a fine long bushy tail, which, when sitting down to wash 

 itself with its pretty hands, curls over its back like the squirrel's, 

 though we are not going to say it is so beautiful as the squirrel. It 

 lives in copses or woods, and is so partial to company, that ten or a 

 dozen nests have been found close to one another. Its motions 

 are so quick that it cannot easily be taken ; you just get sight of it, 

 and it is off like a shot, in an instant. 



In size it is rather larger than the common mouse ; the colour is 



