THE FIELD MOUSE. 263 



dens, where they feed on acorns, beech-mast, and 

 nuts of different kinds. 



"Their places of concealment (saysM. deBuffon, 

 whose account is so excellent, that I shall quote 

 nearly the whole of it) are holes under brush-wood, 

 or trunks of trees. They here amass such quantities 

 of nuts and acorns, that a bushel of these lias often 

 been found contained in one of them,- and this 

 provison does not seem to be proportioned so 

 much to the wants of the animals, as to "the capacity 

 of the places allotted for its reception. The holes 

 are generally more than a foot underground, and 

 often divided into two cells, the one for living in 

 with their young, and the other as a granary. 



" I have often witnessed the great damage done 

 by these animals. They will run along the furrow 

 of a plough, and taking up the newly-sown acorns, 

 will convey them, one by one, to their holes; and 

 in a nursery of trees they are more destructive than 

 all the birds and other animals put together. The 

 only method I could ever find to prevent this evil, 

 was to set traps, at the distance of about every ten. 

 paces, through the whole extent of the newly sown 

 ground. No other preparation is necessary than 

 placing a roasted walnut under a flat stone, sup- 

 ported by a piece of stick, to which the walnut 

 must be fastened. This bait they are very fond of, 

 and will come eagerly to seize it ; but no sooner 

 do they begin to gnaw, than the stone falls upon 

 and crushes them to death. When I first adopted 



T 4 this 



