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As the colony increased, it was needful to make several homes for the gerbilles, and the original pair happened to be, for a time, in a cage upstairs on a landing. One of these found its way out of the cage, down the stairs, across the hall, and was discovered next morning in a room where the younger members of the family were kept. This would go to prove a keen scent, which, I suppose, guided the little animal to find its friends, and also confirms what travellers have written about gerbilles living in large colonies and always keeping together.

One evening I had to read some natural history papers at a Band of Mercy meeting in a neighbouring village, where the clergyman’s wife took great interest in promoting kindness to animals, and as I proposed speaking about the gerbilles, I thought I would take some of them with me to show the children. Accordingly a mother and four little ones, were put into a cage with some food and bedding for their comfort whilst being exhibited. I was concerned to see the extreme terror they seemed to feel at the unusual motion of the carriage, and in a few minutes one became convulsed and literally died of fright. I held the cage in my lap, and talked to the others to reassure them, fearing more casualties, but after a while they settled down, and we reached the schoolroom in due time. I was scarcely prepared for the tremendous sensation the gerbilles created. Remarks in broad Hertfordshire greeted their appearance. “Whoy, here’s a lot of moise.” “Noa, they ain’t; they’s rats!” “Will they boite?” and then such a cluster of children came round me they had to be called to order, and the cage was carried round that all might see the little foreigners, and through all the after-proceedings many pairs of eyes remained fixed upon the cage and its inmates. I fancy that evening will long be remembered by the children.

The great difficulty that attends the keeping of these little animals is their rapid rate of increase. It is true they can all be kept together, for, as I have said, though there are squabbles they do not result in any personal injury, and thus my colony was allowed to go on till there was no counting the number of generations that existed. I very much wished to reduce the numbers, and give some away, but could never tell which were the mothers of the small pink infants I was being presented with continually. I tried putting a little family of the babies into a cage in the plant case, hoping the mother who belonged to them would then appear and take care of them; but no, the entire colony trooped in and ran riot in the new place, and if a young gerbille was by chance left uncovered in the melee, a twentieth cousin would take it up tenderly as if it was its own mother, and replace it in the nest–a very emblem of brotherly kindness and charity. The colony had finally to be dispersed and given away in small detachments to different friends, and, strange to say, in no other case did the numbers increase, I imagine because the requisite conditions of space and quietness were not realized as in the pleasant home I was able to provide for them.