418 MURIDA—EVOTOMYS 
“form” for themselves like a hare. Several observers have 
found that they appreciate the well-known ‘ wheel,” which forms 
a regular appendage to cages for mice. 
Any excitement such as fighting or pairing is accompanied 
by much squeaking, the voice being comparatively deep-toned, 
‘“‘a short, grunting squeak,” neither so sharp nor so prolonged as 
that of the Field Mouse or House Mouse.' One in the possession 
of Mr F. Norgate* fought and squeaked at him when he robbed 
it of a laburnum seed. The mother of Mr T. V. Roberts’s litter 
was most jealous of her young being seen, and freely carried 
them about in her mouth, or, when they grew older, drove them 
into their sleeping compartment. The mother of Mr English’s 
attacked him in defence of her young, and died when caught.’ 
Bank Mice are quarrelsome to their own species, and in 
fighting make a great fuss; grinding their teeth, they stand 
upright on their hind legs, and hop round each other, stretching 
out their fore paws for protection, or bending backwards to 
avoid attacks.* 
This mouse is not usually associated with ‘‘ mouse plagues,” 
but Collett mentions several in Norway, chiefly in the north of 
the country. When food is abundant the numbers increase 
proportionately, and Mr Cocks noticed that the exceptional 
beech-mast harvest of 1900 resulted in great swarms of this 
species and of the Field Mouse at Poynetts, Buckingham- 
shire ; the normal numbers were not resumed until the following 
summer. Mr J. G. Millais® and Mr de Winton® attribute the 
devastation of the Forest of Dean, Gloucester, in 1813-1814, to 
Bank Mice. Except the fact that woods, and not pastures, 
were destroyed, and Edward Jesse’s description® of the ‘“ short- 
tailed mouse” concerned as having the upper parts ‘of a 
reddish brown,” there is no evidence in support of this sup- 
1 Rope, of. cit. The pairing shriek is “un cri aigu et chevrotant, qui rappelle 
celui de la Fauvette” (Lataste, 382) ; Collett states that when two meet (in Norway) 
they frequently utter a loud “tyee-tyew-tyew-tyee,” the syllables repeated in rapid 
succession. 
* Zoologist, 1874, 4236. 
3 For accounts of captive Bank Mice, see Rev. H. H. Slater, Zoologist, 1887, 462 ; 
E. R. Alston, Rope, Head (very tame), T. V. Roberts, off. cit. ; and Macpherson, 
Zoologist, 1894, 149. 
* Rope. Cer 2A7e ® In Lydekker. 
Gleanings in Natural History, 6th ed., 1845, 111-114. 
