522 MURIDAZE—APODEMUS 
as to be barely audible to human ears.’ The sense of smell 
is probably acute also, and perhaps the principal guide in the 
search for food. 
In disposition it is gentle and inoffensive, slow to retaliate, 
so that it rarely bites unless roughly handled. Extremely 
—s 
timid, it cannot, perhaps on 
account of poor sight, be 
called shy, for it may some- 
times be observed from a 
close distance, or caught with 
the hand,’ and no animal is 
more easily trapped. The 
Field Mouse lacks the objec- 
tionable odour of the House 
Mouse, so that, like the Dor- 
mouse, it ought to prove a 
suitable pet; but, although 
extremely beautiful, it is not 
as intelligent as the House 
Mouse, and, while easily 
fed, frequently breeding, 
and sometimes exceptionally 
friendly, it does not always 
; become so tame as to repay 
nae the trouble expended on it. 
ue Some, however, have found 
vw it very attractive, and the 
Sauer 
Fic. 85.—SPOOR OF FIELD MousE IN SNow. late Dr W. E. Leach® is 
(From a sketch by L. E. Adams.) said to have allowed several 
Hind feet (dark) on top of prints of fore feet (lighter). a 
to run about freely on his 
breakfast table. It sometimes enters houses, perhaps by climb- 
ing the creepers, but this habit is more characteristic of the 
Yellow-necked Field Mouse.* 
1 G. T. Rope, Zoologist, 1887, 203. : 
2 Eliza Brightwen, More About Wild Nature, 1892, 58; and L. E. Adams in 
Millais, 189. 2 Bell, ed. ii., 294 ; see also, Eliza Brightwen, of. czt., 120. 
4 See William Thompson, Wat. Hist. Ireland, iv., 15, for Ireland (Belfast) ; 
W. Evans for Scotland (Edinburgh district); G. Rope, Zoo/ogzst, 1887, 206 (visits 
dairies for milk); Millais, 189; Coward and Oldham; Jenyns, Observations in 
Natural History, 1846, 74. 
