Grasshopper-mouse 489 



The food habits of the captive specimen kept by Vernon food 

 Bailey are the main evidence we have on this subject. It 

 would eat any kind of meat and most kinds of insects: it was 

 fond of cheese, cake, and cream. When hungry it would 

 descend to seeds and grass and frogs. When Mice and 

 birds were thrown in, it sprang on them with the ferocity of 

 a professed carnivore; evidently it reckoned them on its list 

 of lawful prey. But its chief and choicest food was insects, 

 crickets preferred. Its appetite for these seemed insatiable. 

 On September 22, in 4 hours it ate 30 large insects, chiefly 

 grasshoppers and crickets; September 25 it ate 53 large in- 

 sects, as before, in 12 hours and apparently would have eaten 

 more if it had had them. From this it will be seen that it 

 is well worthy of the name Grasshopper-mouse. 



"The only insects offered to him which he would not eat 

 were ants, and a few in his box made him almost crazy." 



As a result of such food-habits, the excrement of this excre 



. . MENT 



Species is easily known by the remains of insects that it * 

 contains. 



These simple creatures are easily caught in any kind of trap- 

 a trap with almost any kind of a bait. 



In New Mexico, where I collected a number of arcticeps 

 in 1893, I usually found that the trapped ones had their eyes 

 eaten out by their sorrowing relatives before I could get around 

 in the morning. 



Ill 



3 mchei 



Fig. 143— Tracks of Grasshopper-mouse or Calling-mouse, going towards right Sketched in 

 Yellowstone Park, August i, 1897. (Life size.) 



