WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



move, were a pair of the finest yellow-necks 

 that I had seen. They had evidently pressed 

 in together, each no doubt afraid that the other 

 would get that tasty smelling morsel of cheese, 

 and the spring going off they were also caught 

 together. Very often when field mice are 

 caught in ordinary traps their long tails get 

 chopped off by the door as it snaps down; 

 luckily these two had got their particularly 

 long tails quite out of the way, and not even 

 the tips were any the worse for the owners 

 having been trapped. 



Writing of their tails reminds me of one 

 thing, and that is, whatever you do, if you 

 should have to handle a long-tailed field mouse, 

 do not pick it up by its tail. That long slender 

 tail looks just the very thing by which to grab 

 a mouse as it is running away, and so I thought 

 when my first one got away. This was when 

 I was quite a little girl. A long-tailed field 

 mouse had been caught by the cook in a trap 

 set in the kitchen, and I know now that it must 

 have been a fine specimen of the yellow-necked 

 race. I was fascinated by the big-eyed beauti- 

 ful mouse crouching so terrifiedly in the trap. 

 ' Oh ! don't give it to the cat ? ' I begged its 

 captor. 



ISO 



