bark of
his master's trees; but their parents told them, as they had often done
before, that there was nothing to fear from Harvey, nor from his
frightful looking gun. I hope you have not forgotten who it was that
had saved the lives of so many squirrels. But if Harvey's frolicsome
young spaniels, Flora and Juno, had met with one of our friends at a
distance from any tree, I am afraid it would have been a bad business,
for squirrels cannot run very fast on the ground, and their bushy tails
seem rather in the way there. And the cunning little animals appear to
know this, for though they sometimes come down to the ground, you will
very seldom see them at any great distance from a tree.

A few days after the squirrels roused themselves from their long winter
sleep, their cousins, the dormice, in the thicket at the foot of the
tree, opened their sleepy eyes at last, and came out of their nests.
But when they were once thoroughly awake, their eyes did not look
sleepy at all, but on the contrary, were most beautifully bright and
dark, and rather large for the size of the animal.

[Illustration: THE DORMICE. Page 23.]

I call the dormouse a relation to the squirrel,[2] because in some
respects, he is really very like him, though at first sight you would
not think so, and would perhaps say, that he was very little different
from a common mouse, except in being rather fatter, and of a prettier
colour. But his tail, though not nearly so large and bushy, is
something like the squirrel's, and not at all like that of the mouse,
which is almost entirely bare of hair, and in my opinion, has a very
ugly and disagreeable appearance. The tail of the dormouse is handsome,
and useful also, for when he sleeps he curls it over his head and back,
to keep him warm and comfortable. Then in his habits he resembles the
squirrel, for like him he can climb trees well, though he cannot leap
very far, and he likes to dwell in the shade and retirement of the
pleasant woods, far from the habitations of man. Here he generally
makes his nest, which is composed of moss and leaves, in the thickest
parts of bushes or underwood, and he lays up a winter store, like the
squirrel.

[2] The genus _myoxus_, to which the dormouse belongs, appears to
be intermediate between the genera _sciurus_ and _mus_, in each
of which this animal has been placed by different naturalists.

Dormice are such sociable little creatures, that several families a