WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



ceal itself, as it is clever in doing, this amazing 

 series of flights is gradually reduced to a bound- 

 ing gallop. Moreover, it can dodge and double 

 with a quickness which eludes the eye and must 

 often baffle even the agility of a hawk or weasel. 



This is the only one of our mice to hibernate. 

 As cold weather approaches he digs his way sev- 

 eral inches under ground, or finds some equally 

 snug cranny, where he provides himself with warm 

 blankets of shredded bark, fine grass, or the like, 

 wraps his long tail tightly about him, and becomes 

 dead to all outward things until the warmth of 

 spring revives him. This is certainly an easy 

 and economical way to get through the cold season 

 when we remember the hard task set the other 

 species to provide extensive stores for winter con- 

 sumption. 



The most numerous and ubiquitous of all our 

 field-mice, probably, are the meadow-mice, voles, 

 or arvicolines, especially Microtus pennsylvanicus. 

 In summer these little creatures inhabit meadows 

 and the weedy edges of fields, where they may be 

 near their food, which consists mainly of green 

 herbage and roots. An immense amount of tim- 

 othy grass is annually destroyed by their eating 

 the roots and young shoots. 



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