Page:The Golden Hamster Manual.djvu/10

 Eyes are glistening black, prominent and large. With stout body and short legs and tall, general appearance is coney-like. A truly beautiful animal.

3. Native Life Wild hamsters inhabit waste and pasture lands, and grain fields. Being fond of grains, they prefer locations among thickets and rock slides and beneath stone fences near growing or stored grains. The animals burrow 1$1/undefined$ to 6 feet to nest, where they store

huge amounts of grains or other foods. They like to eat in or near their nests. Omnivorous in diet, they eat almost anything. Most common enemies of hamsters are foxes, hawks, owls, polecats, snakes and weasels. While the earliest breezes of summer are moving in, the first unweaned litter of kittens roams the burrow. Immediately outside the hole the alert mother may be watching or playfully cuffing her offspring, frequently sitting up to listen, to sense any possible danger to her romping kittens. In that wild

state, if food or water become scarce while the mother Is still nursing her litter they may suckle her to the point of desperation. Temporarily she may then become highly carnivorous, raiding the nests of birds; mice and other small creatures to furnish the protein and moisture content food for her young and herself. Under prolonged desperation in failure to procure sufficient other nourishment for them, the mother may resort to cannibalism, killing one of the kittens, likely —8—