HARVEST MOUSE. 55 



deep in the earth, and make warm beds of gra?s ; 

 but their grand rendezvous seems to be in corn- 

 ricks, into which they are carried at harvest. A 

 neighbour housed an oat-rick lately, under the 

 thatch of which were assembled near a hundred, 

 most of which were taken ; and some I saw. I 

 measured them, and found that, from nose to tail, 

 they were just two inches and a quarter, and their 

 tails just two inches long. Two of them, in a scale, 

 weighed down just one copper half-penny, which is 

 about the third of an ounce avoirdupois ; so that I 

 suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this 

 island. A full-grown mus medius domesticus weighs, 

 I find, one ounce lumping weight, which is more 

 than six times as much as the mouse above, and 

 measures, from nose to rump, four inches and a 

 quarter, and the same in its tail. We have had 

 a very severe frost and deep snow this month. 

 My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees 

 and a half below the freezing point, within doors. 



its nest about the latter end of October, 1804, I remarked 

 that there were, among the grass and wool at the bottom, 

 about forty grains of maize. These appeared to have been 

 arranged with some care and regularity, and every grain had 

 the corcule, or growing part, eaten out, the lobes only being 

 left. This seemed so much like an operation induced by the 

 instinctive propensity that some quadrupeds are endowed with, 

 for storing up food for support during the winter months, that I 

 soon afterwards put into the cage about a hundred additional 

 grains of maize. These were all in a short time carried away, 

 and, on a second examination, I found them stored up in the 

 manner of the former. But though the animal was well sup- 

 plied with other food, and particularly with bread, which it 

 seemed very fond of ; and although it continued perfectly active, 

 through the whole winter, on examining its nest a third time, 

 about the end of November, I observed that the food in its 

 repository was all consumed, except about half a dozen grains." 

 W. J. 



