556 MURID#—MICROMYS 
perhaps, would call the species Mus minimus”); and |x., 2nd September 
1774, and the first edition of his Mat Hist. Selborne, 1789) was 
undoubtedly first in the field of publication. Meanwhile, in 1771 and 
1778, Pallas had described the Russian form, and his name takes pre- 
cedence for the species as a whole. Pennant described the animal in 
the 1768 edition of his British Zoology (ii, 498) and acknowledged 
White as his informant, but in subsequent editions this acknowledgment 
did not appear, an omission probably due, as Alfred Newton informed 
us, to White’s own modesty, for he himself corrected the proofs of 
Pennant’s second edition. Since that date the mouse has been well 
known, although rarely seen by naturalists, except those of some of the 
southern and eastern counties, to whom and to Bingley, who wrote an 
excellent account of it in 1809, science is chiefly indebted for additional 
details of its economy. 
Distribution :—The Harvest Mouse is a widely distributed species. 
In Europe its range extends from Scotland and Denmark southwards 
to the Pyrenees, and, in Italy, to the neighbourhood of Naples; east- 
wards from Britain it occurs throughout central Eurasia to Japan, 
where it lives in southern Hondo and on the islands of Shikoku, Kiushiu, 
and Tsu-shima. In eastern Asia its range extends southwards from 
the Transbaikal and Ussuri districts to the south of China (Sze-Chuan 
and Fokien). 
It is not known from Norway (Collett); according to Lilljeborg 
and Winge it is also absent from Sweden, although Blasius and 
Clermont mention it as occurring there; but if really present in 
that country, it must have a very limited distribution. It occurs in 
Finland; in Denmark (Winge); and is one of the most common 
species in Schleswig-Holstein (Boie). It is absent from the whole of 
Iberia (Cabrera, Scharff), and probably from the extreme south of 
Italy. 
In Britain it may, according to Millais, be regarded as generally but 
locally distributed south of Aberdeenshire, though in Scotland it is 
much scarcer than in England ; according to Tomes (Bell, ed. ii., 288) it 
is common, but somewhat local, appearing in considerable numbers in 
certain fields or farms, but not occurring in others, although near. 
Originally found by White and Montagu in Hampshire and Wiltshire, 
this mouse has now been recorded from most English counties. In 
Hampshire it is universally distributed, and it occurs also, though less 
commonly, on Wight (Kelsall). In the Weald of Sussex it was very 
abundant about fifty years ago, but has now almost disappeared with 
the introduction of close-cutting reaping machines (Millais)—to which 
cause field-naturalists generally attribute the growing scarcity of the 
Harvest Mouse observed in other counties. It was at one time so 
numerous in the wealden districts of Kent and Sussex as to commit 

