THE HARVEST MOUSE 567 
and active as the House Mouse, nor a grand jumper like the 
Field Mouse, and hence it is more easily caught by hand. It 
is fond of frequenting tall, rank herbage growing by the sides 
of ditches,’ especially such as have a little run of water through 
them.* Mr E. G. B. Meade-Waldo (zx “t.) describes it as 
loving hedgerows fringed with brambles, grass, and weeds. 
In early spring he can always find it, before the herbage gets 
strong, running on certain banks in and out of holes, and along 
low branches ; in August he sees it climbing about the grass and 
weeds. Unlike the Field Mouse, it is in the main diurnal, and in 
captivity it is aroused to activity by light. In summer it shelters 
itself during sleep, and rears its young, in a wonderful little 
round nest of plaited grass blades suspended so neatly amongst 
living plants as to have long excited the admiration of writers. 
In winter, according to Gilbert White, it burrows deep in 
the ground, making there a warm nest of grass, in which it is 
supposed to hibernate.’ But in corn-growing districts, where 
common, it seems to find all its wants more easily. Here it 
is satisfied by the corn-stacks,* where it shares its quarters 
with the House Mouse until threshing time, and exhibits no 
sign of torpidity. It prefers ricks of oats and wheat to those 
of barley,° and the lower parts of the-stacks, or the rubbish on 
which they are built, to the upper parts*; after thrashing, it 
may remain on in the straw.’ Sometimes large numbers, 
1 G. T. Rope, Zoologist, 1880, 57. 2 Dr H. Laver (zx /7t.). 
3 “ All mice and voles sleep fitfully during the winter, hardly ever moving if the 
temperature falls below freezing-point, becoming active again in search of food when 
milder weather returns. To this rule the Harvest Mouse is no exception. Mr 
Thorburn caught one running in a hedgerow close to his house at Hascombe, Surrey, 
in December 1904” (Millais, ii., 182). Mr Meade-Waldo (zz /74.) has never seen it 
in winter, except with the House Mouse in stacks. 
+ Either carried in the sheaves or finding its way there naturally. Though 
preferring corn-stacks it will also sometimes occupy hayricks (H. Laver, 4/S.), or 
straw (Millais). 
° Perhaps because barley is too rich and indigestible, but English states that 
captives “are quite indifferent as to what kind of grain they eat” ; and Patterson, 
East Norfolk, 1905, 315, mentions many found in the bottoms of barley-stacks. 
® Gilbert White (Letter xiii.), however, mentions nearly a hundred under the 
thatch of an oatrick; see also H. Laver, Fze/d, 14th April 1883, 499. The mice 
probably retire from the upper towards the lower parts as the dismantling of the rick 
progresses. 
7 A. Laver, of. czt.; G. T. Rope, Zoologist, 1884, 56, but whether it breeds in 
stacks or barns, as thought to do by Bell (ed. ii., 287), is uncertain. 
