ee ee 
THE FIELD MOUSE 529 
a family of young, each probably a third of her own size, 
attached to her. 
Some authorities, e.g. Bonhote, speak of a domed nursery 
built above the ground; and Mr Cocks has not infrequently 
found such during haymaking. In the autumn, according to 
Mr Adams, breeding-nests may be commonly found under road- 
side heaps of hedge-cuttings. Usually the nest is placed below 
ground in the characteristic burrow (Figs. 86, 87). The 
burrows are excavated in cornfields during the summer, and 
the mice often remain in them in the stubbles until the plough 
turns them out in the autumn.’ Sometimes the burrows appear 
to be only of a temporary nature, a short steep tunnel, perhaps 
only two or three inches long, leading to a simple enlargement 
containing the usual murine globular nest of dried grass. The 
more permanent burrows may be 3 feet deep, and in them the 
mice commonly lay up stores of acorns, and stay through the 
winter (L. E. Adams). 
Its voice in anger is described as somewhat high-pitched, 
but it makes other sounds of a quiet, chuckling nature.’ 
Although its annual fluctuations do not appear to be so 
violent as those of voles, it is said to have taken part in 
the mouse plagues which devastated the Forest of Dean 
in 1813-14 (see above at p. 451). As stated on p. 418 
above, Mr Cocks observed great swarms of this species and 
of the Bank Mouse, at Poynetts, Buckinghamshire, in 1900. 
Macpherson mentions one which lived upwards of two years 
in captivity. 
All predaceous creatures eat Field Mice when they have an 
opportunity, and in some localities they are the favourite food 
of owls, as shown by their pellets. Mr Aubyn Trevor-Battye 
was informed * that in the dry summer of 1893 the Black-headed 
Gulls* breeding on Scoulton Mere often brought “mice” to 
their young, but these were more likely to have been the 
diurnal Grass Mice than the nocturnal Field Mice. 
3610. Adams once saw a female escape from the bolt-hole of her nest with three or 
four young hanging on; these dropped off as the dam leapt away, the last one at 
about 5 yards from the burrow. 
1 Adams once found “‘a breeding-nest underground on a Yorkshire moor, just 
like those in cornfields.” 
2 Millais, 195. 3 Lydekker, 187. * Larus ridibundus, Linn. 
