1919^ • Our Rats^ Mice and Shkews 57 



at home. Each nest is inhabited by a pair of mice with or without 

 a brood of young according to the season of the year, the last brood 

 apparently remaining in the nests with their parents throughout the 

 winter. This is a slightly larger species than the deer mouse, and 

 is more reddish in color, the dark area along the back is less marked 

 and the color of the upper parts shades into the yellowish white of 

 the underparts without a break. The species is never caught in field 

 trapping for mice and I have caught but one in a trap in the woods. 

 The young are colored like the adults unlike those of the deer mouse 

 which are slate colored above. 



The commonest of the field mice next to the deer mouse is the little 

 harvest mouse, which occurs as commonly but less uniformly, and 

 does not seem to be found at all in the woods. Its characteristics have 

 been noted in connection with the house mouse. 



By far the largest of the field rats and mice is the cotton rat, a 

 stouter built animal and with a proportionately shorter tail than any 

 so far mentioned. This attains a length of from 8 1/2 to over 10 

 inches with a tail less than two-fifths of its total length, the color is 

 grizzled due to an admixture of yellow tipped hairs with black ones. 

 The species seems to be often very common in honeysuckle tangles 

 on upland ditch banks, and it seems more closely confined to upland 

 fields in this vicinity than any other of our species. Traps for small 

 mice are too small for it, and it will often tear the wooden ones to 

 pieces to get at the bait. 



Another good sized species of quite different habits is the rice field 

 rat or rice rat, which casually much resembles a small house rat in 

 appearance. In total length it measures about the same as the cotton 

 rat, but as its tail constitutes about one-half of the total length it is 

 actually much smaller. Its home is in the marshes and cat tail 

 swamps along streams and it swims and dives as readily as a musk- 

 rat, its hind feet being larger in proportion than those of most other 

 mice. 



The other two species of Murida3 occurring here are distinguished 

 from all the foregoing by their short ears and very short tails which 

 latter are less than three-tenths of the total length. The larger is 

 the meadow mouse a dark bro^vn good sized mouse mainly inhabiting 

 lowground meadows, Init found to a greater or less extent in all up- 



