Julius Caesar was
a white mouse I carried proudly home in my blazer pocket after winning
him, as I recall, in a game of marbles at prep school. My mother was
not pleased with my win — and even less so when Julius Caesar
proved not to be a ‘him’ but a ‘her’ and within
a week of settling in my bedroom produced seven small rodents. I was
told to “get rid of the whole smelly lot”, and even after
all these years the rich timbre of her Edinburgh accent which became
more pronounced when she was angry, rings in my mind. |
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Reluctantly I gave away the mouse and
her brood to a friend who kept an owl as a pet, and
such is the callousness of the sub-teen schoolboy that I gave not a thought
to their fate. I
was reminded of them recently though, when my grandchildren acquired two
Chinese hamsters. These looked like mice. So much so that I suspected someone
at the Spanish pet shop had taken a brace of white mice and daubed them
with blue and chocolate paints.
"You’ve been diddled,” I told the
two children. “Those are white mice masquerading as
hamsters.”
But no; they do exist. There’s even a society
in Britain dedicated to their care and culture,
with its own website — from which I learned
that in the wild they are found in the deserts
of Mongolia and Northern China and that they
are not true hamsters but are related to a branch
of “rat-like hamsters.”
“Chinese Hamsters are extremely timid and
fast moving which often makes them difficult
to catch but they are of good temperament
and rarely nip,” says the website. “Their timid
nature means they are often not very active
when handled and so are not a popular pet
with children who want a pet they can hold
and play with. However Chinese Hamsters are
a fascinating pet for those who prefer simply to
observe, particularly when given a large and
interesting environment in which to live.” “They have a sweet disposition and in captivity,
when they have lost their shyness, have
an endearing habit of clinging to one’s finger
with all four paws,” the website warbles its
enthusiasm. And it goes on to explain that
the Chinese Hamster is not as widely kept as
a pet as are real Hamsters, admitting that “this
is probably due to its mouse-like appearance”.
And it adds that there are also restrictions on
the keeping of them in some US states such asCalifornia “where a licence is required to keep
or transport them within the state”.
What no-one told us was that they are also
nocturnal creatures and, in captivity, will expend
huge amounts of noisy energy — particularly if their cages are
fitted with those wheels,
beloved by pet shop owners, which resemble
the treadmills on which minor Victorian felons
were punished.
The hamsters also brought a new dimension
to our grandparental duties we discovered
soon after making their acquaintance— hamster sitting. This is an infinitely more
nerve-wracking occupation than traditional
baby sitting. Firstly, it lasts longer — in our
case three year-like weeks when the hamsters’
owners and their parents went off to Canada
on holiday; and secondly because with creatures
as small as these — and they average
about seven centimeters sans tail — one is
convinced that they will die some sort of unnatural
death… And imagines the accusatory
tears that will accompany the news of the
creatures’ demise. (And this latter concern takes on a particular
resonance when, in the past, one’s cat
has demolished a goldfish handed to one for
temporary safe-keeping…)
(And this latter concern takes on a particular
resonance when, in the past, one’s cat
has demolished a goldfish handed to one for
temporary safe-keeping…)
And at the cottage the creatures slept all
day and like Lillian in the song “played all
night”…noisily. We tried covering them with
a heavy blanket but this didn’t deter them. It
didn’t even deaden the steady metallic whirrwhirr
of the miniature treadmills. Never again, we swore handing the creatures
back… still alive, but having avoided a
silencing execution only by the narrowest of
margins — the thought of those tears….
by Peter Schirmer
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