Jumping-mouse 599 



" Mammals of the Adirondacks " ( 1 884), show conckisively that 

 the Zapus is a winter-sleeper, and the colder the weather 

 the deeper its sleep. 



It seems to prepare a deep burrow late in the summer, 

 preferably under some stump. In this, below the reach of 

 frost, it makes a warm, comfortable nest, and not far away it has 

 several storehouses of food, as already noted. As soon as the 

 nights become cool and crisp the Jumping-mouse retires from 

 the upper world. The further north we go the earlier it 

 retires. Its time is early September in most of Canada; but 

 about Toronto it seems to go down near the end of the month. 

 In my journal for 1888 I find this note: 



September 27. To-day I got a Jumping-mouse. It was 

 in a nest of leaves under the roots of a stump that was pulled 

 up by the stumping machine, and was nearly torpid when found. 



In the country near Carberry I never saw it after Sep- 

 tember I St. V. Bailey states" that at Fort Buford, in Sep- 

 tember, 1887, he found one in "a nest of fine grass under fallen 

 weeds and brush; it was an adult male and exceedingly fat." 

 Nearly all of those found hibernating are solitary. 



One of the most detailed cases is set forth by Professor S. 

 Tenny in the American Naturalist for June, 1872:-'' 



''On the i8th of January of the present year (1872), I 

 went with Dr. A. Patton, of Vincennes, Indiana, to visit a 

 mound situated about a mile or a mile and a half in an easterly 

 direction from Vincennes. While digging in the mound in 

 search of relics that might throw light upon its origin and his- 

 tory, we came to a nest about two feet below the surface of the 

 ground, carefully made of bits of grass, and in this nest was a 

 Jumping-mouse (Jaculus hudsonius Baird) apparently dead. 

 It was coiled up as tightly as it could be, the nose being placed 

 upon the belly, and the long tail coiled around the ball-like 

 form which the animal had assumed. I took the little Mouse 

 into my hand. It exhibited no motion or sign of life. Its 

 eyes and mouth were shut tight, and its little fore-feet or hands 



" Rep. Om. U. S. Dep. Agr., 1888, p. 447. 



^ Quot. in Merriam's Mam. Adir., 1884, pp. 297-8. 



