"No; who can sleep on bare boards, or a poor sprinkling of straw!" he exclaimed, striking contemptuously the floor of his cage. "I who used to burrow deep in the earth, and enjoy a long nap all during the winter, shut up in my snug little home, I know what comfort is! There is nothing like lying some feet under the earth, as quiet as if one were dead, and know that there is a good magazine collected of grain, beans, and pease, to feast on when one awakes in the spring." "But at any rate here you are well fed," I suggested. The words, however kindly intended, had only the effect of increasing the Hamster's passion to a shocking extent. To my amazement and horror he blew out his cheeks till the size of his head and neck exceeded that of his body. He raised himself on his hind legs, and but for the bars of his cage I believe that he would really have flown at me. "Well fed!" he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak; "I should like to know what you call being well fed! Since I have come to this hateful country, not once have I had an opportunity of filling my cheeks with grain. Man, stingy man, thinks it enough to give me a wretched pittance from day to day,-- to me who have had a hundred pounds of corn packed up in my own deep hole,-- to me whose delight it was to carry three ounces weight of it at once in these bags with which Nature has provided my face!" "Most curious and convenient bags they are," said I, willing to appease him by a civil word, though I thought that thus puffed out with air, they anything but added to the beauty of his appearance. "They were the cause of my being taken," cried the fierce Hamster, whose savage complaints had quite silenced the gentler murmurs of the pretty little Lemmings, and had done more perhaps to make them submissive to their lot than anything which I could have said. "How were your pouches the cause of your being taken?" inquired I. "I can fight savagely-- I will fly even at dogs," replied the Hamster (no one could have looked at him and have doubted it,) "but I cannot bite when my cheeks are stuffed full of grain, which was the case when a German peasant seized me; I had no time to empty them, not a moment, or wouldn't I have bitten him! oh, would not I have bitten him!" I felt so much disgusted at the words and manner of this most ferocious of rats, that I was glad to turn away from his cage; reflecting to myself how hideous and how hateful any creature is rendered by violent passion. A perfume, rather more powerful than agreeable, drew my attention towards a division occupied by a Musk-Rat, a native of Canada. I saw within it a creature of the size of a small rabbit, quiet and staid in his demeanour, who welcomed me with a grave courtesy strangely in contrast to the rudeness of the Hamster. "May I venture to look upon you as belonging to the race of Mus?" I inquired, looking doubtingly at his large size, soft fur, and long flat tail.