“Dormice, of many varieties, live in the woods and orchards and eat fruit. These rodents have the agility, elegance of form, and rich fur of squirrels. They make their home in hollow tree trunks, holes in walls, and crannies in rocks. During the winter, when fruit is lacking, they remain in a deep sleep.
“The dormouse proper is found in Provence and Roussillon. It is a pretty creature, reminding one of the squirrel. Its tail is long and thickly covered with hair; its fur ashy brown on the back and whitish under the belly. At night it ravages the fruit-trees, and no one knows better how to pick [[112]]out the pear, the peach, or the plum at just the right stage of ripeness. You have, let us suppose, looked over your fruit with satisfaction and decided to give it one more day of sunshine to bring it to perfection. The next morning you go out to gather the harvest and, lo and behold, it is gone; the dormouse has been there before you.
Dormouse
“The garden dormouse is smaller, being about as large as the black rat. Its coat is a pleasing mixture of red, white, and black, the back being red, the belly, paws, cheeks, and shoulders white, and the parts about the eyes and down the sides of the neck black. This animal is scattered all over France. It lurks about dwellings, in gardens, and among vines and shrubbery, living chiefly on fruit, which it ruins in great quantities, tasting first one choice specimen and then another, without finishing any of them. Garden dormice spend the winter several in one hole, where they sleep all curled up amid the supplies of walnuts, almonds, and hazelnuts that they have laid up.”
“Then if they sleep,” said Emile, “they don’t need any food.”
“Pardon me, my boy; they do need food, and badly, though not while sleeping, but when they wake up. This awakening takes place at the beginning of spring, when the sun is first warming up [[113]]the earth. At that time of year there is no fruit to be had; and the garden dormice, after their fast of several months, have a tremendous appetite, as you can easily imagine. What would become of them now, poor little things, if it were not for their supply of nuts?”
“Those little dormice are very prudent,” Emile remarked. “They know that at the end of their long winter’s sleep they won’t find any fruit in the orchards, and so they lay up provisions beforehand. But why don’t they put by apples and pears if they are so fond of them?”
“Because apples and pears would spoil, whereas almonds and hazelnuts keep very well.”
“That’s so. I hadn’t thought of that, but the little dormouse had.”