MICE GERMAN SILK-TAIL. 47 



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 arid barns with the 

 sheaves ; abound in harvest ; 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. 



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 compact and well filled, that 

 it would roll across the table without being discom- 

 posed, though it contained eight little mice that 

 were naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly 

 full, how could the dam come at her litter respec- 

 tively, so as to administer a teat to each ? Perhaps 

 she opens different places for that purpose, adjust- 

 ing them again when the business is over : but she 

 could not possibly be contained herself in the ball 

 with her young, which, moreover, would be daily 

 increasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant cradle, 

 an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was 

 found in a wheat field suspended in the head of a 

 thistle. 



A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word 

 that his servant had shot one last January, in that 

 severe weather, which he believed would puzzle 

 me. I called to see it this summer, not knowing 

 what to expect ; but the moment I took it in hand, I 

 pronounced it the male garrulus bohemicus, or Ger- 

 man silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags, 

 or points, which it carries at the ends of five of the 



