26 A WORD ABOUT MICE. 



phibius.) These last differ chiefly in size, and the Black Water Vole is 

 certainly much less than the Short- tailed Field or Grass Mouse, to which 

 it bears in form and habits so striking a resemblance. 



The Common Mouse it would almost seem a work of supererogation to 

 describe particularly, most of my readers being very well acquainted with 

 him, as he is a great lover of domestication, and is seldom or never found 

 in the fields, but prefers the shelter of houses, and the ample supply of 

 farinaceous food which the barns and granaries and stacks of farms supply 

 him with. Here the owl is as much his enemy as the cat, and it is very 

 entertaining to see one of these wise-looking gentlemen in the dusk of the 

 evening sitting motionless near the bottom of a corn-stack watching for 

 his prey; and I dare say my readers have often observed the small hole 

 at the barn end, which is purposely made for his ingress and egress. 



Mice occasionally are fond of literature, and a hoard of old papers laid 

 up for years without being disturbed, will be often found to be the nursery 

 of a brood of these creatures, who have shredded up the sheets to form 

 a soft bed for the scions of the race of Mus. When I was a boy, I 

 have sat for hours together watching these pretty creatures, to see how 

 they sat on their hinder legs, when by chance a real prize, in the shape 

 of a whole uneaten oat, was found, and with what dexterity they chaffed 

 off the husk, which fell in a tiny shower around them, and then on the 

 least alarm how they disappeared with the rapidity of thought; but withal 

 they are not good runners neither; take them on to a large surface, without 

 the advantage of corners and appliances of concealment, and they are what 

 is vulgarly called "done;" they make a poor show, and gallop along very 

 helplessly; in fact, they are much like anything else out of its element. 

 Mice are very prolific, and the young are blind and hairless for some 

 days after they are born, and the male is darker and smaller than the 

 female, and this holds good of all the other kinds. 



The next kind we come to is the Long-tailed Field Mouse. This is 

 a very pretty creature, larger than the Common Mouse, and of a fine 

 sandy brown, with large, fine, dark eyes, and a white under part. He it 

 is who commits such depredations in the crocus and pea-beds, and who is, 

 perhaps, the handsomest of the whole race. The fields are his home, and 

 those who have lived in the country know how often the ploughman 

 dislodges him from his hole in the fallow. Schoolboys too well know how 

 these little fellows make a famous team of miniature coach- horses, harnessed 

 with thread like the "set out" of the famous Cinderella. 



We next come to the Short-tailed Field Mouse, who is certainly not 

 so handsome a gentleman, although his mode of life is curious enough. 

 His head is large, and his nose blunt, and his fur blueish, with red brown 

 extremities. His retreat is in the pasture, hence his name of "pratensis" 



