I speak not of those creatures which are saturnine, melancholy by nature, as lead, and such like minerals, or those plants, rue, cypress, &c. and hellebore itself, of which Agrippa treats, fishes, birds, and beasts, hares, conies, dormice, &c., owls, bats, nightbirds, but that artificial, which is perceived in them all.

It moistens and fattens the body, concocts, and helps digestion (as we see in dormice, and those Alpine mice that sleep all winter), which Gesner speaks of, when they are so found sleeping under the snow in the dead of winter, as fat as butter.

20.When a compound, ending with any of the foregoing irregular words, is made plural, it follows the fashion of the word with which it ends: as, Gentleman, gentlemen; bondwoman, bondwomen; foster-child, foster-children; solan-goose, solan-geese; eyetooth, eyeteeth; woodlouse, woodlice; dormouse, dormice; half-penny, halfpence, half-pennies.

It is not often that we are led to reflect upon the extreme loneliness that would prevail in all solitary places in winter, were all the birds to migrate at this season to a warmer climate, or to sink into a state of torpidity, like frogs, dormice, and other small animals.

Divide and rule & The Stolen dormouse prev.

Of dormice XVI.

" "Certainly," agreed Merula, "for I have seen there great flocks of geese, chickens, pigeons, cranes and pea-cocks: also dormice, fish, wild boars and other such game.

So the second division, that relating to game, has two different classifications: one which includes the wild boar, the roe buck and hares; the other bees, snails and dormice.

Certain of them, such as dormice, snails and chickens, may, however, be obtained without the aid of a hunter's net, and doubtless the business of keeping them began with the stock native to every farm: for the breeding even of chickens has not been a monopoly of the Roman augurs, to make provision for their auspices, but has been practised by all farmers from the beginning of time.

"It is the practice to keep in such enclosures not only the animals I have named, but also snail houses and bee hives and jars in which dormice are fed, but the care and the increase and the feeding of all these things are easy, except in the case of bees.

And turning to Merula, Axius continued: "Appius has lightened your task, my dear Merula, so far as concerns the matter of game, and briefly the second act of our drama may be brought to an end, for I do not seek to learn any thing about snails and dormice, which is all that is left on the programme, for there can be no great trouble in keeping them.

" Of dormice XV.

"Dormice are preserved on a different systern than snails, for while the one is confined by barriers of water, the other is kept in by a wall which must be coated on the inside with smooth stone or stucco to prevent their escape.

Young nut trees should be planted in the enclosure, and when these are not bearing, mast and chestnuts should be thrown in to the dormice, for that is what makes them fat.

Little water is necessary, for dormice do not require much water, but on the contrary affect dry places.

The potters make these jars in different shapes, but with paths for the dormice to use contrived on the sides and a hollow to hold their food, which consists of mast, walnuts and chestnuts.

Covers are placed on the jars and there in the dark the dormice are fattened.

He mentions the nuts as part of the diet of dormice (III, 15).

In his treatise De re culinaria Apicius gives a recipe for a ragout of dormice which sounds appetizing.]

They were all asleep in the room to the right of the stairsthe two little boys in one bed, the two little girls in the other, each pair huddled together against the cold, like dormice in a nest.

" It preyed on his mind so much that he tried to repair the failure by buying some white dormice.

How full of repose!" One of the guests went to inspect the dormice more closely, and a peculiar expression came over his face.

"Wake up, little dormice," said Rossetti, prodding them gently with a quill pen.

We are all like the dormouse!

"You might as well say fatted dormice and snails," said Frank.