136 



THE HARVEST MOUSE. 



being round, oval, or pear-shaped, with a long 

 neck, and are to be distinguished from those of any 

 other mouse by being generally suspended on some 

 growing vegetable, a thistle, a bean-stalk, or some 

 adjoining stems of wheat, with which it rocks and 

 waves in the wind ; but to prevent the young from 

 being dislodged by any violent agitation of the 

 plant, the parent closes up the entrance so uni- 

 formly with the whole fabric, that the real opening 

 is with difficulty found. 



They are the most tame and harmless of little 

 creatures ; and, taking shelter in the sheaves when 

 in the field, are often brought home with the crop, 

 and found in little shallow burrows on the ground 

 after the removal of a bean-rick. Those that remain 

 in the field form stores for the winter season, and 

 congregate in small societies in holes under some 

 sheltered ditch-bank. An old one, which I weighed, 

 was only one drachm and five grains in weight. 



Mankind appear to be progressively increasing. 

 It was an original command of his Creator, and the 

 animals domesticated by him, and fostered for his 

 use, are probably multiplied in proportion to his 

 requirements; but we have no reason to suppose 

 that this annual augmentation proceeds in a propor- 

 tionate degree with the wild creatures upon the sur- 

 face of the globe ; and we know that many of them 

 are yearly decreasing, and very many that once 

 existed have even become extinct. That there are 

 years of increase and decrease ordained for all the 

 inferior orders of creation, common observation 



