HAMSTER AND MYGALE. 



a subterranean house, consisting of several rooms connected to- 

 gether by corridors. The dwelling has two communications with 

 the surface, one con- 

 sisting of a vertical 

 shaft, by which the 

 animal makes its en- 

 trances and exits ; the 

 other is an inclined 

 shaft, merely used for 

 the purposes of con- 

 struction, the animal 

 extruding through it Fig . 5 ._ The Hamster, 



the earth excavated 



in the formation of its habitation. One of the rooms is furnished, 

 as the bedroom of the owner, with a couch of clean, dry grass, and 

 is otherwise neatly kept. The others are used as store-rooms for 

 the winter stock of provisions, which are amassed there in 

 considerable quantities. 



The form of the store-rooms is nearly spherical, and their dia- 

 meter from 8 to 10 inches. 



The female, who never lodges with the male, usually provides 

 several of these vertical entrances to her habitation, with a view 

 to give easy means of entrance to her young, when they are 

 pursued by any enemy, and obliged precipitately to take refuge 

 in their dwelling. 



The number of store-rooms which they provide being de- 

 termined by their stock of provisions, they are excavated in 

 succession, when one is filled the animal beginning to make 

 another. 



The room which the female constructs as a nursery for her 

 young ones never includes provisions. She brings there straw 

 and hay to make beds for them. Two or three times a year she 

 has five or six younglings, which she nurses for about six weeks, 

 at which age she banishes them from her dwelling to provide for 

 themselves. The depth of the dwelling varies with the age of the 

 animal, the youngest making it at about the depth of a foot. 

 Each successive year the depth is increased, so that the vertical 

 shaft leading to the den of the old hamster often has a depth of 

 more than five feet, the whole habitation, including dwelling- 

 rooms, store-rooms, and communicating corridors, occupying a 

 space having a diameter of 10 or 12 feet. 



25. Certain spiders, known to zoologists by the name Qimygales, 

 execute works similar to those of the hamster, but much more 

 complicated, for not only do they construct a vast and commodious 

 habitation, but they place at its entrance a door, mounted upon 



123 



