398 
DORMICE.—BUTTERFLIES. 
first felt, they stir out for food, and again assume 
a torpid, or partially torpid state during any unex¬ 
pected relapse of cold after that time. Three which 
I possessed tried to escape from their box in the 
beginning of April, by incessantly gnawing the 
cover at one spot, and I did eventually find them 
at large in the room, examining all its parts ; these 
became torpid afterwards, as I have above stated, 
from return of cold. 
Dormice eat amazing quantities of food, but 
acorns they principally delight in. In summer 
they get extremely fat, at least in confinment, and 
after eating they will retire to a corner of their box, 
and either lie roiled up as during their hybernation, 
or in a reclining posture. They are shy and timid, 
and occasionally repose with one eye open to pre¬ 
vent surprise in some suspicious quarter. They are 
able to carry great weights by their mouths but 
when the substance is too bulky they will rest it, 
and steady it by their fore paws while eating it.— 
They have the extraordinary habit in common with 
swine, ferrets &c. of befouling their vessels contain¬ 
ing food or drink. Are affected with ticks. 
Butterflies .—A curious fact connected with tor¬ 
pidity deserves record, this is, that two or three kinds 
of butterflies appear abroad as early in the year as 
February, and though they probably had not been 
dormant through the winter, they become so on 
inclement days, and occasionally layup for a week 
or more at a time, like other kinds of insects in whom 
torpidity is observed. 
Warty Eft or Newt .—This animal appears to 
undergo some great constitutional change during 
the time of hybernation, since like Tortoises and 
probably other kinds of reptiles, it refuses food on 
its first reviviscence, and only gradually attains its 
appetite; by the time the spring has fairly set in 
however it is both active and possessed of a good 
