78 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



this part of the country at any rate, — I would undertake to 

 find the traces of the Squirrel in the snow whenever the ground 

 is covered with it. My belief is that Squirrels dislike damp 

 and wet much more than cold.' x 



Order RODENTIA. Fam. MYOXIDJE. 



DORMOUSE. 



Muscardinus avellanarius (L.). 



The Dormouse occurs sporadically in a few of the most 

 densely planted portions of Lakeland, from the Rusland valley 

 up to the slopes of the fells at the southern end of Windermere. 

 Dr. Gough recorded it in 1861 as not infrequent in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Kendal, but I have not heard of its recent occur- 

 rence there. Mr. T. N. Postlethwaite wrote in 1885 that he 

 had frequently met with the Dormouse in the neighbourhood of 

 Millom : ' One was shown to me, some winters ago, frozen to 

 a piece of wood; and last year, while trout-fishing, a boy 

 with me found one amongst the rocks on the banks of the 

 stream.' 2 



I have never yet been able to trace the Dormouse in the 

 eastern parts of Cumberland or Westmorland. Mr. Ben Jonson 

 caught two Dormice in his garden at Dalston in 1880, about 

 which time Mr. W. Hodgson obtained a specimen in the same 

 neighbourhood. Dr. Heysham recorded the Dormouse as found 

 in the Cumbrian portion of Ulleswater, and this is fully borne 

 out by modern evidence. Mr. Hodgson resided in the parish 

 of Watermillock, Ulleswater, as the village schoolmaster, for a 

 long series of years. He tells me that he repeatedly came 

 across the Dormouse during the extended excursions which he 

 was accustomed to make in search of wild-flowers. 



1 Zoologist, 1891, p. 152. During the fall of the year this Squirrel shows 

 a marked partiality for Fungi as an addition to its usual dietary. Mr. Tom 

 Duckworth tells me that it especially prefers the red-fleshed mushroom 

 (Ammonita rubescens) and the variable mushroom (Eussula heterophila). 



2 Zoologist, 1885, p. 211. 



