WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



squeaking, but the fighting did not seem 

 serious, and I felt perfectly happy about them. 

 However, my confidence was misplaced, for 

 next morning one of the smaller mice lay dead 

 on the bottom of the cage, and, what was worse, 

 was partly eaten too. As all mice are given to 

 cannibalism when they find a friend or neigh- 

 bour lying dead, I did not take much notice of 

 the corpse being eaten, and, knowing what 

 gentle creatures long-tailed mice are, concluded 

 the mouse had died from an accident or a hurt 

 which it had met with before being put in the 

 cage. All the same I was surprised to find 

 that the two other long-tails had made a nest 

 for themselves, and were not sleeping with the 

 yellow-necks. Hitherto my long-tailed mice 

 had always welcomed strangers into the family 

 nest, where they would all sleep happily to- 

 gether, but evidently the yellow-necked mice 

 were not going to have the smaller ones living 

 with them. Next night another small mouse 

 died ! Then it dawned upon me that murders 

 had taken place. It seemed that the big 

 mice looked upon the smaller race as quite 

 different creatures, and were not going to 

 tolerate them at all ! Having taken away the 

 one which was still unhurt, I thought I would 

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