THE DORMOUSE. 



Predilection for moist grounds, &c. 



animals that, with proper care, might be propa- 

 gated among us, and might become one of the 

 most serviceable of our domestics." 



It is said that these animals inhabit only moist 

 grounds, banks of rivers, 8cc. and that they are 

 never found on mountains or dry tracts of land, 

 Their species is not much diffused ; few of them 

 being found except in Turkey, Spain, Syria, and 

 the southern provinces of France. Buffon re- 

 marks, that in the spring of 1775 the Abb6 Rou- 

 bard sent him a genet that was killed at Livray 

 in Poitou, and M. Delpeche informed him, in a 

 letter, that it was a constant practice with the 

 peasants of the province of Rouergue to bring 

 dead genets to the merchants in the winter season. 

 It seems they are principally found near Ville- 

 frunche, where they burrow in holes, like rabbits. 



THE DORMOUSE. 



OF the dormouse Buffon reckons only three 

 jpecies, viz. the greater dormouse, which he calls 

 the loir, the middle, the loiret, and the less, the 

 muscardin; modern naturalists, however, have 

 enumerated no le&s than seven kinds, namely, 

 the common dormouse, the striped dormouse, the 

 fat dormouse, the garden dormouse, the Chilian 

 dormouse, the earless dormouse, and the gilt- 

 tailed dormouse. 



This little animal is in many parts of England 

 JL E 2 



