Mice and Men 



THESE simple words about the harvest mouse have a 

 great importance and interest, for they were hailed, 

 when written, as being the first announcement of a 

 surprising discovery, nothing less than a new quad- 

 ruped in Hampshire, then supposed to be the smallest 

 of them all but the lesser shrew has now robbed the 

 little harvest mouse of that distinction. 



He is a tiny, reddish- brown mouse, white beneath, 

 so light that it takes two to weigh down a halfpenny 

 in the scale. He is very sociable, and crowds are 

 found together in the stacks, and may be picked up in 

 handfuls. 



It is one of the prettiest sights of the cornfield to 

 watch this fairy-light creature nimbly running up a 

 corn-stalk to feed on the grain within the ear, to see 

 how he clings to the stalk with his little hand-like 

 feet, and how when he comes down he uses his tail 

 as a grasping instrument. We have no other animal 

 that can grasp with its tail like the harvest mouse. 



And it is always a delight to find the wonderful 

 nest, supported at a little height above the ground, 

 by three or four corn-stalks, or built of split leaves of 

 reeds, or of dry grass-blades, and set up in a tuft of 

 coarse grass ; sometimes we find the nest in a standing 

 corn-stack. It is always interesting to puzzle over 



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