Among them is the Hamster (_Cricetus frumentarius_), so widely known for the ravages which it makes among the crops. This terribly destructive animal not only steals the crops for immediate subsistence, but lays up a large stock of provisions for the winter, seeming to be actuated by a sort of miserly passion for collecting and storing away. There seems to be no bounds to the quantity of food which a Hamster will carry into its subterranean store-house, from seventy to one hundred pounds' weight being sometimes taken out of the burrow of a single animal. The fact of the existence of these large stores shows that the animal must need them, and accordingly we find that the Hamster is only a partial hibernator, as it is awake during a considerable portion of the winter months, and is consequently obliged to live on the stores which it has collected. It is an exceedingly prolific animal, each pair producing on an average twenty-five young in the course of a year. The families are unsociable, and, as soon as they are strong enough to feed themselves, the young Hamsters leave their home, and make separate burrows for themselves. Thus we see that the Hamster, as well as the Field-mouse, fulfils the conditions which are needed in order to class it under the general title of Akbar. I have already stated that some translators of the Bible use the word Jerboa as a rendering of the Hebrew Akbar. As the Jerboa certainly is found in Palestine, there is some foundation for this idea, and we may safely conjecture that it also is one of the smaller rodents which are grouped together under the appellation of Mouse. The Common Jerboa (_Dipus Ægyptiacus_) is plentiful in Palestine, and several other species inhabit the same country, known at once by their long and slender legs, which give them so curious a resemblance to the kangaroos of Australia. The Jerboas pass over the ground with astonishing rapidity. Instead of creeping stealthily among the grass-blades, like the short-limbed field-mouse, the Jerboa flies along with a succession of wonderful leaps, darting here and there with such rapidity that the eye can scarcely follow its wayward movements. When quiet and undisturbed, it hops along gently enough, but as soon as it takes alarm, it darts off in its peculiar manner, which is to the ordinary walk of quadrupeds what the devious course of a frightened snipe is to the steady flight of birds in general.