THE HAMSTER'S DWELLING 



The passages are often twenty or thirty feet long, their 

 openings above ground are a great distance apart, and the 

 den is made at a depth of at least four or five feet from the 

 surface. Often the chamber is situated much deeper, as when 

 it happens to be dug out of the side of a hill, and in that case 

 the animal usually makes ventilating holes leading directly 

 upwards to the open air. Badgers are probably less uncom- 

 mon in England than they are generally supposed to be, but 

 owing to their retiring nature and nocturnal habits they are 

 seldom seen except by those who come under the spell of 

 woods by night. There were recently, and probably there 

 are still, a few of these animals that made their home in 

 Epping Forest, and not very long ago I saw two fine speci- 

 mens in a wood in Sutherlandshire. 1 At one time badgers 

 were undoubtedly very widely distributed in these islands, as 

 we may judge both from the frequency with which their re- 

 mains are met with in caves and elsewhere, and from the 

 various places, such as Brockley and Brockenhurst, whose 

 names are derived from this animal , while in many parts of the 

 Continent, especially in Germany, they are still very common. 



There is an animal called the Hamster (Cricetus f rumen- 

 tarius) which frequents cornfields in the temperate parts of 

 Europe, Asia, and America. It is a rodent a relative, that 

 is to say, of the rats and mice ; but it is larger than they, 

 being about ten inches in length exclusive of the tail, which 

 seldom, however, measures more than two inches. Its 

 general appearance is rather pleasing and scarcely suggests 

 its true nature, which is far from amiable, for it is a sulky, 

 ill-tempered creature. 



This animal is also a burrower, and makes under the 

 ground a spacious living-room and at least one other 

 chamber, which is used as a granary, Brehm, a celebrated 



i J. L. 



