596 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



direction or changing it at will. It can double, and quickly, 

 too, if pursued, and by its manoeuvres and instantaneous 

 squattings, can, and often does, elude a hawk or an owl, and 

 its spontaneous irregularities enable it to escape being brained 

 by a Weasel or swallowed whole by the common black- 

 snake." 



It is widely stated and believed that the Zapus jumps 

 from its hind-feet unaided by its fore-feet or tail, and lands 

 on all fours as well as on tail; that is to say, it jumps from two 

 legs and lands on five. But how they know I cannot say. I 

 have seen it jumping often enough, but the movement was all 

 too quick for my eye. I saw nothing but a dim buff flash. 



TAIL The preposterous tail of this animal is of great service to 



it in these leaps. It acts as the tail to the kite and keeps the 

 body right end up. It is almost sure that, deprived of its tail, 

 the Zapus would lose the benefit of its wonderful hind-leg 

 development, and either jump very weakly, or with such bad 

 aim, that it would be much better for it not to jump at all. 



Since writing the above I have found the following account 

 by G. S. Miller, Jr.:^« 



"A young individual [of the present species] had lost 

 its tail by the knife of a mowing machine in a damp meadow 

 and was rendered thereby helpless. Not that its jumping 

 power was in any way impaired; on the contrary, I have seldom 

 seen a Mouse of the size leap more energetically or to greater 

 distances. But the animal had lost all control of its move- 

 ments. When I approached, it made violent efforts to escape, 

 but the moment it was launched in air, its body, deprived of 

 its balancing power, turned end over end, so that it was as 

 likely as not to strike the ground facing the direction from 

 which it had come. The next frantic leap would then carry 

 it back to the starting point." 



Commenting on the incident, Rhoads adds:'" 



"That this misfortune would not always prove fatal I have 

 proof from an old individual, whose stump tail was about two 



"Mam. N.Y., 1899, p. 330. *" Mam. Penn., 1903, p. iii. 



