THE HAMSTER. 



461 



purpose of laying up a winter store of provisions. By dint of dexterous management, the 

 animal fills its cheek-pouches with grain, pressing it firmly with its paws, so as to lose no 

 space, and then carries off its plunder to its subterranean treasury, where it disgorges the con- 

 tents of the pouches, and returns for another supply. The husbandmen are so well aware of 

 this propensity that they search after the habitation of the Hamster after the harvest is over, 

 and often recover considerable quantities of the stolen grain. The destructive capability of 

 the animal may be gathered from the fact that a single Hamster has been known to hoard no 

 less than sixty pounds of corn in its home, while a hundred weight of beans have been recov- 

 ered from the storehouses of another specimen. 



The skin of the Hamster is of some value in commerce, so that the hunters make a double 

 use of a successful chase, for they not only recover the stolen property of the agriculturist, 

 but gain some profit by selling the skins. 



HAMSTER.— Cricetusfrumentarius. 



The burrow of the Hamster is a most complicated affair, and not very easy to describe. 

 Each individual has a separate burrow, and not even in the breeding season do the male and 

 female inhabit the same domicile. At some depth below the surface of the earth are several 

 rather large chambers, communicating with each other by horizontal passages. In one of these 

 chambers the creature lives, and in the others it places its store of provision. There are at 

 least two entrances to each burrow, one being almost perpendicular, and the other sloping. 

 Sometimes there are more than two entrances to the chambers, but there are never less than 

 that number. The depth of the chambers is from three to five feet. Each burrow is only 

 intended to serve for one season, and is abandoned at the end of winter. 



As the Hamster is in the habit of throwing the excavated earth from the oblique burrow, 

 technically called the "creeping-hole," its locality is discovered by means of the mound of 

 loose earth which is heaped at its entrance. Eighty thousand of these animals have been 

 killed in one year within a single district. 



The Hamster is a very prolific animal, as appears from the fact that it still holds its own 

 in spite of the constant persecxition to which it is subjected by the agriculturists and the 

 regular hunters. There are several broods in each year, the average number of each family 

 being from seven to ten or twelve. As soon as the young Hamsters are able to shift for them- 



