OF HARTING. 245 



the young are deposited within it, the fibres round the 

 opening are re-adjusted so as to completely close the 

 structure, and the parent mouse is supposed to suckle 

 her infant family through the interstices of the outer 

 covering, which being of a somewhat loose texture, is 

 sufficiently elastic to expand with the growth of the 

 nurslings. The discovery of these nests is an every 

 day occurrence in our harvest fields, and during the 

 last week of the harvest of 1874, after all the wheat 

 had been housed, we had no less than nine of them in 

 our possession, these were cut out in three fields only, 

 and as many more nests might have been obtained 

 there in the same time if we had expressed a wish to 

 have them. The full-grown harvest mouse is a very 

 pretty lively little creature, very restless, very shy, 

 very voracious, and, under certain circumstances, a 

 decided cannibal, of this latter fact we have had 

 direct evidence this very season. A nest was brought 

 to us containing one young one only, the others having 

 escaped in the field, this we secured in a dormouse 

 cage, and a day or two afterwards a full-grown female 

 was caught and placed with it ; on examining the nest 

 the next morning, we found she had left nothing of 

 the young one but a few fragments of skin and bone ! 

 This discovery, however, did not lessen the interest 

 with which we noted the dexterous use she made of 

 her paws and prehensile tail, as she climbed over the 

 bars of her cage, and her graceful attitude while 

 cleaning her head and face with her fore feet ; this she 

 did regularly after her breakfast of bread and milk, to 

 which she always applied herself very eagerly as soon 

 as it was offered to her. Of the other food we placed 

 within her reach, she seemed to give the preference to 

 dry bread and grains of barley. One incident illus- 

 trative of her instinct may, perhaps, be worth record- 

 ing : as soon as she had the cage to" herself, she re- 

 arranged the materials of her nest with great care, 

 and, before many days had passed, produced a young 



