120 SQUIRRELS AND OTHER FUR-BEARERS 



it soon dies, probably of fright. One night in 

 midsummer, when I was camping in the woods, 

 one of them got into an empty tin pail and was 

 dead in the morning. A teacher caught one in 

 a delusion trap, and attemped to take it to her 

 school, to show her children, but it was dead 

 when she got there. In winter it makes little 

 tunnels under the snow in the woods, now and 

 then coming to the surface, and, after a few 

 jumps, diving under the snow again. Its tracks 

 are like the most delicate stitching. I have 

 never found its nest or seen its young. Like 

 all the shrews, it lives mainly upon worms and 

 insects. 



The track of one of our native mice we do not 

 see upon the snow, that of the jumping mouse. 

 So far as I know, it is the only one of our mice 

 that hibernates. It is much more rare than its 

 cousin the deer mouse, or white-footed mouse, 

 and I have never known it to be found in barns 

 or dwellings. I think I have heard it called the 

 kangaroo mouse, because of its form and its 

 manner of running, which is in long leaps. Its 

 fore legs are small and short, and its hind legs 

 long and strong. It bounds along, leaping two 

 or more feet at a time. I used to see it when a 

 boy, but have not met with one for many years. 



