MUS MINUTUS. 27 



prising agility, even whilst climbing, their is tail partly 

 twined about the reeds or branches, a particularity, also 

 observed by Pallas with respect to Mus vagus and Mus 

 hetulinus. It was in vain that we set out traps of diffe- 

 rent structure and provided them with all kind of bait, 

 — Mus sylvaticus and M. musculus were from time to time 

 caught in those traps, but never a single M. minutus. 



I think it worth while, to mention here the singular 

 fact of a specimen of Mus minutus^ observed in the year 

 1851, as a straggler in the middle of the town of Leiden. 

 A living specimen of this mouse, having been caught in 

 a trap of iron network, placed in a room, was brought 

 to one of the inhabitants , then a student at the University. 

 This gentleman, Mr. R. T. Maitland, as an experienced 

 naturalist at once recognized the species, and seeing that 

 the specimen was a pregnant female, he shut it up in a 

 bird's cage , at the same time putting into it a quantity of 

 papershreds, cotton and other soft matter. The little ani- 

 mal soon afterwards began to build a nest in the wonted 

 globular form , and to deposit in it two young ones. 



I now return to our colony of mice in the ditch. Af- 

 ter the breeding season, the reed of the ditch was cut 

 down , with the exception of a small patch of reed , in 

 the middle of the ditch and beyond the reach of the mow- 

 ers. We then saw to our great astonishment, that our 

 little mice established between these reeds nests of a very 

 different character from those , destined to receive their 

 progeniture. They were composed of different watermoss 

 [Hypnum) ^ covering the surface of the bottom of the ditch, 

 which for want of water had almost become dry, and atta- 

 ched between several stems of reed , exactly like the nests 

 of most of the reed- warblers , but of a fusiform shape , from 

 one half to one foot high and from three to four inches 

 in diameter about their middle. These nests , placed at 

 the height of one foot above the level of the water, 

 showed no inlet. The animal , when trying to make use of 

 this refuge, removed that part of the upper covering of 



JNote* from the Lieyden IMuseum , Vol. III. 



