Meadow Mouse 



as not to take to the water for safety; I have often seen them 

 swimming about beneath the ice in shallow water, and in summer 

 paddling along between the pickerel weed and rushes. I have 

 also seen them dive and swim for short distances under water, 

 and when they emerge, their fur after a few shakes proves its 

 fitness for that sort of thing by coming out as fluffy as ever. 



Yet it frequently happens that on taking to the water for safety 

 they only find another enemy, for pickerel often seize them from 

 beneath at such times. 



Meadow mice are even abundant on the salt marshes by the sea, 

 not only along the border where the marshes and forest meet, and by 

 the skirts of the sand-dunes, but well out on the flat grassy stretches 

 and by the margins of salt ponds that with each recurring moon are 

 daily inundated by the ocean. 



How they manage to escape the floods at these times I know 

 not; it would appear that they are not much in the way of taking 

 refuge in haystacks, even when the marsh is thickly dotted with them, 

 as it is from August until the winter is well spent. 



Perhaps they have learned to watch the subtle movement of the 

 tide and are able to foretell each high run in time to remove 

 themselves and their families to higher ground. This would certainly 

 call for an astonishing amount of intelligence on their part, for the 

 treacherous thing will ebb and flow harmlessly day after day and 

 week after week, hardly wetting the roots of the thatch along the 

 creeks; and then suddenly without warning and perhaps just because 

 a coast storm is harassing the sea somewhere out at the edge of the 

 gulf stream so far away that hardly a cloud shows above the 

 sky-lines, it lifts itself and spreads out across the grass, flooding the 

 paths of the mice and all their haunts in the space of a few hours. 



But the meadow mice are a wise folk and I firmly believe that they 

 do manage to foretell the floods in most instances and camp along the 

 borders of the marsh until the danger is over. What if some of 

 them do occasionally get overtaken by the tide ? as I have said already 

 they are practical swimmers and there is pretty certain to be an 

 abundance of eel grass in bunches and driftwood and rubbish of all 

 sorts floating about to serve as rafts until the waters recede to their 

 accustomed channels. But it is my belief that the mice very rarely 

 allow themselves to be taken unawares in any such manner. 



I have spent considerable time on the marshes when they were 

 being overflowed for the first time in weeks and cannot recall ever 



XX4 



