Dormouse and Children This miraculous spell is sure, pretty soon,
to stir the dormouse out of his winter's anaesthetic. More squirrel than mouse, gentle and harmless, friendliest of creatures, he belongs more to the world of children than any animal I know. He is the sleepmouse in Southern counties, sleeper in some, dorymouse and dozing-mouse in others. In bracken districts his early summer nest is like a chance cluster of wind-balled bracken, easy but exciting to find, architecturally as masterly as the nest of tit or wren. He himself has a colour a shade lighter than the squirrel, pale fox-gold, with a faint creaminess underneath and bright blackberry eyes. Most grown-ups, I take it, already know all this, but the first sight of a dormouse for children is a rare experience. If you look for dormice, on warm spring evenings, among thickening clusters of honey- suckle leaves, take children with you ; and have the good fortune, as I did, to see the child mistake the nest for the nest of a bird, to hear the cry of fear as the dormouse appears and runs up the bare arm, to watch fear turn to delight in the child and to fearlessness in the animal, until in tame tranquillity he sits ready to be stroked. A charming sight, an unforgettable meeting of small creatures.
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