70 HABITS OF THE DORMOUSE. 
the case, if a toe with a small number of phalanges was placed on the outside of 
one having a greater number. 
In the wings of the Cassowary and Emeu, which are less developed than in 
any other bird except the Apteryx, we find a smaller number of bones than in 
the wings of those birds which use that organ for the purpose of flight; it is, 
therefore, only consistent with sound analogy, to expect a smaller number of 
phalanges in the toes of those birds which make the least use of them; and 
Caprimulgus |jhe Nightjar. —Ed.], which uses its feet less than most birds, which 
never perches, but when it alights on the branch of a tree merely rests on its 
surface, with its body in a parallel line with the branch on which it stands, has 
one phalanx less on the outer toe than any other bird I have met with, except 
the Swift, the outer and middle toe having four phalanges each. The Swift, 
which uses its toes in a still less degreee, and I believe in a less degree than any 
other bird, while its powers of flight are developed to a very extraordinary 
extent, has the usual number of phalanges in the hallux, and only three in each 
of the other toes. It is remarkable that the little Humming-bird, which has 
smaller feet than almost any other bird in proportion to its size, whilst its 
powers of flight are developed in a still more extraordinary degree than in the 
Swift (the pectoral muscles of a bird weighing only seventy-five grains, exceeding 
in thickness those of the Ostrich, which weighs fourteen stone, and equalling the 
corresponding muscles in man), should, from its being a perching bird, have its 
tiny feet developed, as far as regards the number of phalanges, to the same 
extent as all other perching birds. 
Any gentleman passing through York may satisfy himself of the correctness of 
my statements as regards the Struthious skeletons, by inspecting them at the 
museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in that city. 
NOTES ON THE DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE DORMOUSE. 
By Richard Pigott. 
Having just now an opportunity of a free conveyance of a letter to town, I 
am induced to send you a few further observations that I have been enabled to 
make on the domestic habits of the Dormouse (Myoxus avellanarius ), one of 
which I have had in my possession since December last (see Vol. III., pp. 104 
& 377). From the time the little creature roused itself from its Winter torpor, 
on the 1st of April last, till now, I have attentively watched its movements, 
that I might learn somewhat of an animal necessarily but little known, from its 
