508 MURIDAZ—APODEMUS 
Field Mouse may pass for the Dormouse (see Bolam, Naturalist, 
1913, 41). “Bean Mouse” (sometimes “Beaner”) of Pennant 
(Thompson, iv., 1856, 15) is a word known in Kent, Surrey, and 
Sussex, from its habit of attacking stores of beans and peas (L. E. 
Adams, JZS.). 
(Celtic) :—Scottish Gaelic—the species of mice are not usually 
distintinguished, and /uch-fheotr or luch-an-fheotr=“ grass mouse” is 
applied indiscriminately in Scottish Gaelic (C. H. Alston). Irish—Luch 
Sheoiy =“ grass mouse” of Clare Island (Colgan, Proc. R. Lrish Acad, 
XXxXi., 4, 22, 1911). Welsh—ZLlygoden y maes or Llygoden goch= Field 
Mouse; Liygoden ganolig=Common Mouse. Manx—Lughvarghey, 
Lugh sliean (Millais). 
History and status:—A species of Apodemus was described by 
Gesner (Quad, 1551, 830) as Mus agrestis major. Although many 
descriptions were published in the eighteenth and the early part of the 
nineteenth centuries, a knowledge of the status of these mice cannot be 
said to have existed prior to the work of Hensel (1856). The status 
has been discussed above under the genus. 
Distribution :—A. sy/vaticus is distributed over nearly the whole of 
Europe and a large part of Asia. Its range extends from Ireland and 
Iceland to central Asia, and from central Skandinavia and northern 
Russia southwards to Algiers, Sicily, Crete, the mountains of southern 
Persia, and northern India. In the Alps, according to Blasius, it 
ascends to 6000 feet. Fatio (p. 212) records it from a height of 1900 
metres in the Bernese Oberland, and from 2500 metres in the 
Engadine!: he says that in the bad season it retires from such stations 
to chalets and the cellars of houses. In the Altai Mountains it is met 
with up to about 7000 feet ; in the mountains of Persia it has been taken 
at about 5000 feet; and it occurs in the Himalayas up to a height of 
11,500 feet. 
Miller says: “This is the most abundant and universally distributed 
of European mammals. Except in cities, at the extreme north, on the 
highest mountains, and perhaps in some parts of the Mediterranean 
region, it is probably more numerously represented in individuals than 
any other species.” 
The typical sub-species, A. s. sy/vaticus, which is the common British 
form, ranges from Ireland across central Europe eastwards for an 
unknown distance into Russia; and from central Sweden and Norway 
to the south of France and northern Italy. It occurs also in Iceland, 
but is generally regarded as an introduction there. Thienemann 
(Reise im Norden Europas, ii., 153) described the Icelandic Field Mouse 
as a distinct species, Jus zslandicus, but in habits and character this 
animal does not appear to differ from typical sy/vaticus (see Steenstrup, 
? These high Alpine Mice were probably /lavicol/is, see p. 546 below. 
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