NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



LETTER XII. 



November tfh, 1767. 



SIR, It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that \hzfalco turned 

 out an uncommon one. I must confess I should have been better 

 pleased to have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had 

 never seen before ; but that, I find, would be a difficult task. 



I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former 

 letters, a young one and a female with young, both of which I 

 have preserved in brandy. From the colour, shape, size, and 

 manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that the species is 

 nondescript. They are much smaller, and more slender, than the 

 mus domesticus medius of Ray ; and have more of the squirrel or 

 dormouse colour ; their belly is white, a straight line along their 



sides divides the shades of their 

 back and belly. They never enter 

 into houses ; are carried into ricks 

 and barns. with the sheaves; abound 

 in harvest j and build their nests 

 amidst the straws of the corn above 

 the ground, and sometimes in thistles. 

 They breed as many as eight at a 

 litter, in a little round nest composed 

 of the blades of grass or wheat. 1 



One of these nests I procured 

 this autumn, most artificially platted, 

 and composed of the blades of 

 wheat, perfectly round, and about 

 the size of a cricket- ball ; with the 

 aperture so ingeniously closed, that 

 there was no discovering to what 

 part it belonged. It was so com- 

 pact and well filled, that it would 



HARVEST MOUSE AND NEST. ro ii across the table without being 

 discomposed, though it contained eight little mice that were 



