FIG. 172. Ichneumon.
The Hamster ([fig. 170.]) is the most famous and the most destructive rat that exists. The reason why we did not give its history among the other rats was because, at that time we had not been able to procure one of them; and we are now indebted for the knowledge we have acquired of it to the Marquis de Montmirail and M. de Waitz, who has sent us two living hamsters with an instructive memoir on their manners and natural habits. We fed one of these animals for many months, for the purpose of examining it with attention, and afterwards dissected it, in order to compare its internal structure with that of other rats, and observed, that in its interior parts it resembled more the water rat than any other animal; it resembled him also by the smallness of its eyes and the fineness of its hair; but its tail, instead of being long, is much shorter than that of the short-tailed field mouse, which, as we have already observed, greatly resembles the water-rat in its internal conformation. All these animals live under the earth, and seem to be animated with the same instinct. They have nearly the same habits, and particularly that of collecting corn, &c. and making great magazines in their holes: we shall, therefore, dwell much less on the resemblances of shape and dispositions, than upon differences which distinguished the hamster from all the other rats and mice, and field-mice, we have already spoken of.
Agricola is the first author who has given precise and particular indications of this animal. Fabricius added several facts, but Schwenckfeld has done more than all the rest; he dissected the hamster, and gave a description of it, which agrees almost entirely with ours; notwithstanding which he has not been quoted by naturalists of a more modern date, who have been contented with copying Gesner; and yet it is but justice to that author to remark, his observations are so full and correct, that by subjoining those of M. de Waitz we have whatever can be wished for on the subject of this animal.
“The habitations of the hamsters are of different constructions, according to the sex and age, and also according to the quality of the land. That of the male has an oblique passage, at the entrance of which is a quantity of earth thrown up. At a distance from the entrance there is a hole which descends perpendicularly into the chambers, or cavities of the habitation. There is no hillock of earth near this hole, which makes it probable that the oblique entrance is made hollow from the outside, and that the perpendicular hole is worked within-side from the bottom to the top.