THE DORMOUSE OR SLEEPER 367 



the onset of hibernation is postponed, litters may be born in 

 the winter.^ Monsieur Lataste concludes that the period of 

 gestation is about three weeks,^ and since captives will pair 

 about every ten days, and the young are independent of their 

 mother by about the twenty-fourth day, there is plenty of time 

 for a series of litters between May and November. To 

 produce young in the middle of May the mice must have 

 paired shortly after concluding their hibernation. 



The young at birth have the eyes and ears closed, and are 

 destitute of hair. One born in the cages of Monsieur Lataste, 

 opened its eyes on about the eighteenth^ day, and on the 

 nineteenth moved out of the nest for the first time and 

 began to eat. When twenty-one days old, it attained the 

 characteristic aspect of its race. It now began to climb about 

 its cage ; on the twenty-fourth day it differed from its parents 

 chiefly in its lesser size. 



If disturbed, the female, like other mammals, will sometimes 

 remove her young by the scruff of the neck in her mouth, and 

 Mr Grabham has photographed one in the act ; such removals 

 are, however, believed to be of rare occurrence. 



By the end of September the Dormouse becomes exceedingly 

 fat.* In October or November, having built its winter or 

 hibernating nest, and laid up a store of food either beside or 

 in its bed, each animal retires separately, and curling itself up 

 into a ball, with its fore paws against its cheeks and its tail 

 wrapped round its head and back, passes into torpidity. 



The winter nest is usually constructed of moss, under an 

 accumulation of leaves, it may be 2 feet thick, and placed in a 

 hollow of the ground protected by roots of trees or stones. 

 It may occupy a cavity in a tree-stump, sound or rotten, but 

 frequently lies underground.'' Quite often the hibernaculum 

 differs neither in structure nor situation from a summer dormi- 



' Three young soon after Christmas, in captivity (L. A. Dunnage, Field, 4th 

 February 1905, 190 ; see also Field, 8th November 1873, 485). 



^ Op. cit; he states that in EKomys gestation lasts twenty-two days, and'oestrum 

 recurs about every ten days. 



^ A very late date compared with a rabbit or mouse (see above, p. 211), perhaps 

 because eyesight might lead to premature attempts to leave the nest, 



* See above, p. 361, under weight. 



' As deep as 2 feet (Frances Pitt, MS.). In 1904 Millais saw forty discovered 

 amongst the fibrous roots of rhododendrons at Warnham Court, Sussex. 



