58 WOODLAND CREATURES 



a lovely mouse it was! such a round, fat, pros- 

 perous one ; its yellow coat was sleek and glossy, 

 and it looked as if it had been living on the best 

 of good fare. So no doubt it had, for it had been 

 a mild open autumn and food had been plentiful. 

 This animal gets exceedingly fat during the summer 

 and autumn, so that by early winter it is simply 

 a furry bundle of prosperity, and it is these 

 internal stores on which it lives during the cold 

 weather. While asleep its consumption is lowered, 

 but still some fuel is needed to keep the slowed- 

 down machinery from stopping altogether, and 

 this energy is derived from the stores of fat. By 

 spring these are used up, and how different the 

 prosperous mouse looks now ! It has faded to 

 a mere ghost of its former self, and weighs but 

 half what it did; however, a few weeks foraging 

 about in the bushes restores it to something like 

 its former plumpness. 



At this point I can imagine some reader ex- 

 claiming, " But a dormouse hides away nuts 

 to eat during the winter/' There is, I know, 

 a general belief that the dormouse is a provident 

 little creature, and provides against times of 

 scarcity, but I have never met with a particle of 

 evidence in support of the idea, and am convinced 

 it is wrong. To start with, why should the dor- 

 mouse hibernate at all, if it has ample stores of 

 nuts on which to depend ? Secondly, I have 

 never found a dormouse's hoard, nor have my 

 captive dormice ever shown the least desire to 

 hide their superfluous food. Lastly, it does not 



