NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HAMSTER. 



81 



While she is with young she brings in no provision, and as soon as the 

 young are grown, they separate, and then this chamber often remains 

 untenanted. 



The first fall of snow renders the hamsters torpid in their nests, 

 whose entrances they take care to have previously closed, and on the 

 first warm day in March they revive from their hybernation. 



They have frequently two broods in the year, and the young of the 

 first brood sometimes breed within the same year. After the pairing 

 season, the male and female separate, and whenever they again meet 

 by accident, they quarrel and show the most spiteful hatred. The 

 female goes with young about six weeks, and has, when young, 

 from three to five at a birth, but when older from six to. sixteen. The 

 young are at first blind, and the mother does not seem to treat them 

 so kindly as other animals, for when three weeks old she drives them 

 from her. 



No other animal is so destructive to corn-fields as the hamsters ; 

 but, besides grain, they eat young birds, meat, fruit, roots, grass, seeds, 

 herbs, and sown seed-corn, and, in autumn, rye. They go out to 

 forage early in the morning and about dusk in the evening, carrying 

 home their plunder to their store-rooms. They stuff grain and other 

 provisions into their cheek pouches with their paws, and when they 

 wish to empty these they press gradually on the outside with their 

 fore-feet. They press their magazine close together, and are said to 

 gnaw off the ends of the grain to prevent its germinating. As a winter 

 treat, they consume a small portion, should they happen to be roused 

 from their hybernation, but this never continues long. Their store- 

 room, however, is of no little importance, and often contains as much 

 as a hundred weight of provisions, such as fruits, peas, beans, tares, 

 barley, oats, wheat, and rye, of which they always take care to choose 

 what is of the best quality. They also eat green seed. 



Their teeth are said to be poisonous, and their bite heals with diffi- 

 culty. Their enemies are the weasel, the marten, pole-cats, foxes, 

 cats, owls, and hawks. They are destroyed in their holes by means of 

 the vapours of sulphur, and also caught in pit-falls constructed with 

 glazed earthenware pots. But the most usual way of extirpating 

 them is by digging them out of their nests. They are thus dug ouf, 

 from March till June, the furs being then in the best condition ; and 

 after the harvest they disappear, and are not so readily found. As 

 soon as the hamster-digger gets near the store-room, he closes up all 

 the outlets, and then is the time to strike the animal dead with the 



VOL. I. NO. IT. (FEB. 1833.) G 



