570 MURIDAZ—MICROMYS 
though it contained eight” young. The nests are probably 
put together rapidly, and their precarious situation amongst 
quickly growing herbage implies frequent change and 
reconstruction of domicile. Millais suggests that the nests 
are now more seldom found in standing corn than formerly ; 
that, since it breeds several times during the season, there are 
several nests, the first among wild vegetation, another [or two] 
amongst corn, and a third or fourth amongst corn-ricks.* 
Mr A. H. Waters enjoyed several opportunities for 
watching the Harvest Mice at work in a cornfield in Cambridge- 
shire. From his MS.? it would appear that the doe gathers 
the materials for the nest. She sits up at the base of the 
plants forming the chosen site, and holding a “leaf with her 
paws while biting the edge with her teeth, she tears off a 
long strip. Then holding one end of the strip with her teeth, 
she goes through a variety of movements so rapid that it is 
impossible to follow them, but the result is a tangle of the 
whole slender ribbon of leaf... . Next, after a run up and 
down. the stems of the wheat or thistle, she proceeds to tug 
the tangle up to the summit. Sometimes. . . . she pushes 
it up, or carries it as well as she can in her teeth. Having got 
it up, she rests it where it will stop supported by the corn- 
stalks or the branches and leaves of the thistle. . . . Now she 
splits the leaves of the wheat-stalk much as she did the 
detached leaf she selected for the foundation of her nest, but 
this time the strips are only half torn from the leaf. These 
strips she weaves in and out the tangled strip she carried up 
the stalk. The result is that the half-completed nest is securely 
fastened to three or four stalks and is free to wave in the wind” 
without risk. ‘Individual mice vary in their way of finishing 
the nest. Some do: little more to it except making the bed 
- inside the woven cradle. Others add more strips of leaf, and 
make a fairly compact structure. Some carry up grass stems 
and interlace them with the rest, and also take up leaves and 
! For another description and figure of nest, see Landois, Zoo/. Garten, 1871, 162 ; 
he describes neighbouring grass-stalks as being bound to the nest to serve as ladders 
for the young. 
2 In chapter xx. of an unpublished MS,, entitled Zhe World of Animal Thought, 
by A. H. Waters, B.A. (quoted from an extract found among Barrett-Hamilton’s 
papers ; I have not been able to find out where the MS. itself reposes.—M. A. C, H.). 



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