344 SOME OBSERVATIONS ON BRITISH MICE. 



as a rule, because the more mature specimens have the 

 cunning to avoid the danger. The elders, too, are more 

 chary of showing themselves ; but the youngsters will some- 

 times appear in public in the most incautious fashion. 



The long-tailed field-mouse {rnus sylvaticics) is perhaps 

 the most handsome of our British mice. The colour of his 

 fur is a rich reddish brown on the back, and a pure white 

 underneath ; his ears are large and outstanding, and his eyes 

 are very prominent, and exactly resemble black glass beads. 

 This mouse is to be found in all situations — on commons, 

 in the woods, by the streams, and in the hedgerows. 



He has an abiding place in our literature, for has he not 

 been immortalised by Burns in his pathetic lines beginning, 

 '• Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie " ? He is also the 

 hero of those familiar verses of the nursery, " Do you know 

 the little wood-mouse, that pretty little thing ? " This poem 

 gives a good idea of the habits of the animal, but makes 

 an error when it asserts the fact of its hibernation, thus 

 confounding it with the dormouse. 



This mouse makes a very interesting pet. One afternoon 

 in late autumn I went into the countrj'-, with the fixed 

 intention of bringing home a wood-mouse, but not until the 

 shades of evening began to close did I meet with any success. 

 I was about to return disappointed, when I noticed a wren's 

 nest on the top of an ivy-covered hawthorn bush about five 

 feet from the ground. Putting my fingers into the nest, I 

 surprised a wood-mouse, who promptly ran out, and tried 

 to escape by running down the trunk, but finding himself 

 intercepted he was obliged to remain on the bush. After 

 a long and tedious pursuit, he sat resting quietly in the iv}^ 

 by the wren's nest. I saw my chance, and quickly seizing 

 his tail, I secured him, and safely imprisoned him in a little 

 box I had with me. 



