510 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



sociA- Though often found in numbers together, the Mice of this 



BILITY 



group are not, strictly speaking, sociable, since they do not 



seem to combine their efforts for a common purpose or profit 



by each other's society. 

 COM- It is a remarkably silent species. Kennicott says^ 



GATING, that he did not at any time hear this Mouse utter sounds, as 

 ^^^' the Microtus austerus does, whenever several are feeding 



together, nor did it make any cry when caught. 



BURROWS It does not make the over-ground, under-grass runways, 

 so characteristic of the true Meadow-mice. Continual use 

 may occasionally give visible shape to the pathway near its 

 nest, but ordinarily it scampers about on the floor of the forest 

 as freely as a tiny Deer. 



NEST From all accounts the nest is usually placed in a super- 



ficial burrow. Though it is sometimes found on the top of the 

 ground, under or in logs, stumps, or moss. Kennicott found 

 one *'in the rotten stub of a tree several feet from the ground."^" 

 Usually it is lined with grass and other soft material. 



BREED- Regarding the mating, we know little beyond the fact that 



it attends to these duties at the earliest opportunity, with 

 assiduity that is worthy of the indefatigable and fecund family 

 to which it belongs. 



Nothing is known of the period of gestation for this, or, so far 

 as I can learn, for any other of our Meadow-mice. Millais gives^^ 

 the gestation of the British species (£. glareolus) at 28 days. 



The evidence is that it breeds as soon as the snow is well 

 gone in spring, though why it should wait is not obvious, as it 

 is active all winter under the snow, and just as warm probably 

 as later. 



YOUNG The species is very prolific. Kennicott*^ found 8 young 



in a nest, and within several rods of this a family of 5 or 6, 



« Ibid., p. 89. " Ibid., p. 89. 



"Mam. Gr. Br. & Ire., Vol. II, 1905, p. 246. ^^ Ibid., p. 90. 



