54 HARYEST-MOTJSE. 



though they hang their nests for breeding up amidst the 

 straws of the standing corn, above the ground, yet I find that, 

 in the winter, they burrow deep in the earth, and make 

 warm beds of grass ; 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, 



favourite food, such as grains of wheat or maize, she would eat them before 

 me. On the least noise or motion, however, she immediately ran off, with 

 the grains in her mouth, to her hiding-place. One evening, as I was sitting at 

 my writing-desk, and the animal was playing about in the open part of its cage, 

 a large blue fly happened to buzz against the wires ; the little creature, 

 although at twice or thrice the distance of her own length from it, sprang 

 along the wires with the greatest agility, and would certainly have seized it, 

 had the space betwixt the wires been sufficiently wide to have admitted her 

 teeth or paws to reach it. I was surprised at this occurrence, as I had been led 

 to believe that the harvest mouse was merely a granivorous animal. I caught 

 the fly, and made it buzz in my fingers against the wires. The mouse, though 

 usually shy and timid, immediately came out of her hiding-place, and running 

 to the spot, seized and devoured it. From this time I fed her with insects 

 whenever I could get them ; and she always preferred them to every other kind 

 of food that I offered her. When this mouse was first put into her cage, a piece 

 of fine flannel was folded up into the dark part of it as a bed, and I put some 

 grass and bran into the large open part. In the course of a few days, all the 

 grass was removed ; and, on examining the cage, I found it very neatly 

 arranged between the folds of the flannel, and rendered more soft by being 

 mixed with the nap of the flannel, which the animal had torn off in consider- 

 able quantity for the purpose. The chief part of this operation must have 

 taken place in the night ; for although the mouse was generally awake ana 

 active during the daytime, yet I never once observed it employed in removing 

 the grass. On opening 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 supplied 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. 



