Vermin of the Farm. 
229 
seeds of the hornbeam and other forest trees, grain, and fruit of 
different kinds, particularly grapes. In confinement, a bit of 
apple or pear, if offered, is generally eaten with relish. The 
dormouse will also suck the eggs of small birds, as a squirrel 
will do, and it seems to be not generally known that it is insecti- 
vorous. A tame dormouse, when allowed a run in the garden, 
would eat the Woolly Aphis, Aphis lanigera, and the caterpillars 
of the Eyed Hawk-moth, Smerinthus ocellatus. It was very fond, 
too, of the grubs of the Nut Weevil, Balaninus nucum, preferring 
on that account maggoty nuts to sound ones. It would also 
eat the small caterpillars found in apples and pears. Having 
regard, then, to the nature of its food, it cannot be said to be 
very destructive to agriculture, nor deserve to be reckoned 
amongst the vermin of the farm. It holds, as it were, an inter- 
mediate position between the mouse and the squirrel,' and its 
actions and habits remind us more of the latter than of the 
former. It climbs much, sits up like a squirrel on its haunches, 
holds its food in its forepaws, and has a bushy tail. It lays up 
a winter store, and hybernates, sleeping sometimes as long as 
six months uninterruptedly. In the Zoologist for May, 1882, 
will be found a very interesting article on the hybernation of 
the dormouse, in which the writer, Herr A. Rabus, gives the 
results of experiments made by him in regard to temperature, 
loss of weight, duration of sleep, and number of respirations to 
the minute. 
Much as one would like to say a good word for so pretty 
and graceful an animal as the squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), frequent 
observation of its habits and the nature of its food compels 
us to admit that in some respects it is very destructive. Its 
bill of fare is remarkably varied. It lives upon acorns, beech 
mast, hazel-nuts, filberts, the bark of young trees, especially 
birch and sycamore, leaf-buds and tender shoots, the cones of 
larch and other pines, also bilberries {Zoologist, 1864, p. 9359). 
Though living chiefly amongst trees, in the holes of which it 
retires and lays up its winter stores, it frequently descends to 
the ground in search of fallen nuts and beech mast, and digs 
up and eats truffles, for which it will hunt by scent.^ In Sep- 
‘ A mouse has three molar teeth in each jaw, a squirrel five, and a dor- 
mouse four, but in their structure those of the dormouse differ from both the 
others. This and other peculiarities, notably the absence of a caecum (or “ blind 
gut”), has induced zoologists to place animals of the dormouse kindin a separate 
family, MyoxidcB, between the Muridce and Sciuridte. 
* Blasius, Sdvgethiere Dcutschlands ; von Tschudi, Tlderlehen der Alpen- 
rvelt ; Alston, Zoologist, 1865, p. 9483; Newtpn, Zoologist,, 1865, pp. 9560 
and 364§, 
