mammalia: peromyscus leucopus. 19 



Two bats were found which had large mites attached to the tender 

 parts of the head, one having two cHnging to its face. The mites were 

 so full of blood that their distended abdomens appeared red and shining. 

 A few Aphaniptera have been seen upon bats in the cave.* 



Family MURIDAE. 

 Peromyscus leucopus (Rafinesque). White-footed Mouse. 



Fairly abundant in all the main passages. Its distribution seems 

 influenced by the occurrence of suitable banks of earth or small crevices 

 in the rocks serving as retreats, rather than proximity to the mouth of 

 the cave. There were abundant signs of mice about cracks and crevices 

 in the wall and at all banks of earth where it was not too wet. Mice 

 are most abundant from near the mouth to the mound, where most 

 favorable conditions exist, although signs of them have been noticed 

 along the stream well towards " 42. " Five specimens were caught one 

 night in ten cyclone traps. They may easily be trapped in any part of 

 the main cave. 



They feed upon nuts, seeds, and other decaying vegetable matter 

 washed into the cave, upon the myriapods and insects inhabiting the 

 cave, and upon any animal matter or refuse left by visitors to the cave. 

 They live in burrows in the deposits of soil and in cracks in the rocks. 

 Mice proved quite a nuisance by stealing the beef and cheese left as 

 bait for insects and other cave animals, often undermining the stone 

 under which the bait was placed in order to steal it. Once a mouse 

 trapped in the cave was partly eaten by other mice. On another occa- 

 sion, a bottle lost in the cave on a former trip was found with the label 

 off and half eaten. Feces of mice were about the place. Mice dig and 

 loosen up the soil in places to get at decaying seeds and other organic 

 matter deposited with the soil. This activity is very noticeable at times. 



One of these mice was taken in a cage trap and brought out alive. 

 Its eyes became sore in two or three days and it soon died. Soreness of 

 the eyes was noted in a Neatoma pennsylvanica, the cave rat of Mammoth 

 Cave, which seemed about to go blind in a few days after being brought 

 into the light and kept there. Its eyes, however, got better a few days 

 later, although they hardly regained their original luster and seemed 

 not to protrude so much as before. 



*The red bat, Lasiurus borealis (Miiller), is said to occur in the caves in this 

 region, but none have been recorded, although it is seen quite commonly and often taken 

 outside of caves. I took a single specimen of the big-eared bat, Corynorhinus 

 macrotis (Le Conte), in the Upper Twin Cave at Mitchell in the fall of 1902. This is 

 somewhat north of the range stated and of any locality given for this species by Miller 

 in his Revision of the North American Bats of the Family Vespertilionidas (North 

 American Fauna No. 3, Biological Survey, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1897). 



