NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HAMSTER. 



79 



ency of insect food, it then probably preys chiefly upon field-mice, and 

 such small birds as it can contrive to seize ; and there is no doubt that 

 a very considerable number of young birds are thus destroyed. I once 

 observed six or seven large beetles and humble bees, transfixed by one 

 of these birds on the thorns of a sloebush, each of which had been 

 deprived of its abdomen. 



Tooting, Surrey, Dec. 1832. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HAMSTER. {Cricetus vulgaris, 



DUMERIL.) 

 BY CHRISTIAN QUIX, OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE *. 



Hamsters fighting. 



Synonimes. Cricetus, Gesn. Quadr. p. 738 ; Ray, Quadr. p. 281 ; Mus cricetus, 

 Linn. syst. Nat. by Gmel. i. 137 ; Pallas, Glir. p. 83 ; Schreb. 4, PI. 198 A. ; Glis cri- 

 cetus, Erxleb. Mam. p. 363; Glis marmota Argontoratensis, Briss. Quadr. p. 166 ; Le 

 Hamster, Buff, par Sonn. xxxii. 168, PI. 13. ; Desmoulins, Diet. Classiq. in verb. 

 Hamster; Sulzer, Naturg. Tab. 1, 2 ; Hamster nigricans, .La Cep. Mammal; Hamster 

 Rat, Penn. Hist. Quad. ii. 206, PI. 84; Shaw's Gen. Zool. ii. 95. PI. 137. 



* Translated from the German work, " Naiurbeschreibung der Feldmause uvd de 

 Hamsters" by Cbristina Rennie. 



