42 PONDS, -PADDOCKS, AND AVIARIES 



in Egypt, Palestine, and Cyprus, where it commits great 

 ravages upon dates and other fruit. I have living 

 specimens of the four European species of dormouse, but 

 have nothing of any general interest to record about 

 them, except that one species, known as the 'garden 

 dormouse,' does not exhibit the drowsy tendencies of our 

 common English dormouse or the two others of this 

 family in the day-time, but is always remarkably active, 

 and ready to bite and scratch, whenever handled. We 

 have during the last two years bred a good many of the 

 exceedingly pretty striped mouse of Africa, known as the 

 Barbary mouse, from a pair procured for me by a friend 

 in Morocco. We have not taken the trouble to make 

 special pets of any of these mice, but they are not only 

 very tamable but also capable of a considerable amount 

 of education : a lady who paid us a visit last year brought 

 one of these little animals with her, and had taught it 

 to sit up on a doll's chair, open a little cupboard, take 

 sugar from a drawer, hold up and drink milk or tea from 

 a teacup, sham dead at her command, and perform 

 other tricks ; in fact, this mouse displayed quite as 

 much intelligence, in his degree, as an average lady's 

 lap-dog. 



"Although we have had many losses among the birds 

 of prey, some of the oldest denizens of our aviaries are 

 of this class ; in fact, the most ancient living creature in 

 the collection is a white-tailed or sea eagle, taken from 

 a nest in the south of Ireland in the early spring of 1854, 



