372 MUSCARDINID^— MUSCARDINUS 



animal. It emits, however, when frightened, a slight hissing,^ 

 described also as a "querulous cry,"^ or, when expressing 

 anger, a violent piping sound.^ A " low whistling " is attributed 

 to it by Mr Richard Kearton,* who has heard woodmen call it 

 the " Singing Mouse." 



Gough's specimen mentioned above must have survived for 

 about four years in captivity, as also did one kept by Capt. 

 Hadfield.^ This period exceeds anything in the experience of 

 the authorities of the Zoological Gardens,^ where seventeen 

 individuals had an average longevity of only three and a half, 

 and a maximum of only thirteen months. 



There are not many superstitions connected with this 

 animal, although the older writers of pharmacies held some 

 remarkable views in regard to its efficacy as a constituent in 

 prescriptions. The majority, if not all, of these notions were 

 based upon foreign beliefs applied to foreign species. Topsel, 

 for instance, whose work is usually such a fertile hunting- 

 ground for those in search of quaint information, does not 

 appear to have known the British Dormouse, and Mr Millais 

 quotes the German writer, Dr F. Helm,^ without, however, 

 noticing that he wrote of the Garden Dormouse of con- 

 tinental Europe. 



[The " Button-Mouse " of Orkney, reported to Baikkie and 

 Heddle (15, footnote) as being only 2 ins. long and 

 "frequently found asleep rolled up in the shape of a ball," was 

 thought by Forsyth Major {Zool. Garten, May 1905, 129-138), 

 though on slight evidence, to be possibly a "Birkenmaus" of 

 the genus Sicista (Gray, 1827, antedating Smintkus, Nathusius, 

 1839). This genus ranges from Central Asia to Denmark 

 and South-eastern Norway, where the species is S. trizona of 

 Pet6nyi. It belongs to the family Zapodidcs, and is characterised 

 by external murine appearance, but has 4 -1- 4 upper cheek-teeth, 

 the crowns with two rows of tubercles arranged longitudinally.] 



' Lataste, oji. cit, 44. 2 Mayne Reid, op. cit., 104. ^ Rabus, op. cit. 



* The Fairyland of Living Things, 1907, 83. ^ pi^g Rope, op. cit., 1885, 213. 



" See P. Chalmers Mitchell " On Longevity and Relative Viability in Mammals 

 and Birds," in Proc. Zool. Soc, London, June 191 1, 447. This Dormouse is not 

 mentioned in Max Schmidt's paper " On the Duration of Life of the Animals in the 

 Zoological Garden at Frankfort-on-the-Main," in Proc. cit, 20th April 1880, 299-319. 



' Zool. Garten, 1887, 217-219, translated in Zoologist, i888, 14-16. 



