154 



THE GNAWERS OR RODENTS. 



eyes are very small, often quite hidden under 

 the skin; the external ears are altogether 

 wanting; the tail is rudimentary or quite 

 absent. The form of the body resembles 

 that of the moles. The stout fore-feet are 

 furnished with four toes with powerful bur- 

 rowing claws and a rudimentary first digit 

 covered with a smooth nail. These animals 



live in underground galleries, in the course 

 of which they throw up little mounds of earth 

 like mole-hills. In plantations they cause 

 considerable damage by gnawing away the 

 roots even of large trees. The species re- 

 presented in fig. 209 is a native of the east 

 of Europe, very abundant in Ukraine and 

 Moldavia, not rare in Hungary, and met with 



Vig. 210. — The Hamster 



as far as the Caucasus and the Urals. The 

 minute eyes are completely covered with skin. 

 The fur is silky, soft, thick, and of a dark 

 yellowish-gray colour. The three cheek-teeth 

 have two enamel folds running into them, and 

 small spots of enamel in the centre. 



The Hamsters. 



This group (Cricetus) forms the transition 

 to the field-mice and the rats, but is distin- 

 guished by the presence of enormous cheek- 

 pouches opening into the mouth, covered 

 with a sinewy membrane, and sometimes 

 extending immediately beneath the skin far 

 back, even behind the shoulders. The first 

 cheek-teeth have six tubercles arranged in 

 three transverse lines, the others only four. 



The typical species, the Hamster Proper 



[Cricetus frumentarius). 



(Cricetus frumentarius), fig. 210, is met with 

 in corn-fields in the temperate parts of Eu- 

 rope, from the Vosges on the one side to the 

 Urals on the other. Formerly it was much 

 more widely distributed, but it has never 

 passed beyond the Vosges within historical 

 times^ although in certain years it is tolerably 

 abundant in Alsace and the Palatinate of the 

 Rhine. It is a plump, compact animal with 

 short legs, and measures about 12 inches in 

 length. The head resembles that of a cat, 

 with short broad rounded ears and brilliant 

 moderately large eyes. The tail is very 

 short; the toes, notwithstanding the burrow- 

 ing habits, have only short claws. The thick 

 fur is brownish on the back, black underneath, 

 and bright yellow on the feet and the rest of 

 the body. Light-yellow patches separate the 



