MICE'S NESTS. 39 



The winters of Andalusia are so mild, that, in all likelihood, the 

 soft-billed birds that leave us at that season may find insects 

 sufficient to support them there.* 



Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and leisure, 

 should make an autumnal voyage into that kingdom ; and should 

 spend a year there, investigating the natural history of that 

 vast country. Mr. Willughbyf passed through that kingdom on 

 such an errand ; but he seems to have skirted along in a super- 

 ficial manner and an ill humour, being much disgusted at the 

 rude dissolute manners of the people. 



I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about the 

 swallows roosting on the aits of the Thames ; nor can I hear any 

 more about those birds which I suspected were merula torquata. 



As to the small mice, I have further to remark, that though 

 they hang their nests for breeding up amidst the straws of the 

 standing corn, above the ground ;J yet I find that, in the winter, 

 they burrow deep in the earth, and make warm beds of grass : 

 but their grand rendezvous seems to be in corn-ricks, into which 

 they are carried at harvest. A neighbour housed an oat-rick 

 lately, under the thatch of which were assembled near an hun- 

 dred, most of which were taken ; and some I saw. I measured 

 them; and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two 

 inches and a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two 

 of them, in a scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, 

 which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois : so that I sup- 

 pose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full- 

 grown mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce lumping 



* Syria, Egypt, and the interior of the Barbary States, appear to be the general rendezvous, in 

 winter, of most of our European summer-birds of passage, but very few, if any, remain in Spain. 

 Eb. 



t See Ray's Travels, p. 466. 



J The breeding nests of the harvest mouse (mus messorins) vary a good deal fti form, some of 

 them being round, others oval, and many of a pear shape. They are usually attached to some 

 growing vegetable, a bean stalk, or stem of wheat, with which they rock and waver in the wind. 

 Occasionally, however, they are fixed in a bush. ED. 



They are the smallest of our known British quadrupeds, but not the most diminutive of the 

 genus, a yet more minute species having been discovered in France, and named by M. F. Cuvier 

 M. pumilus- There is indeed great reason to suspect that additional species will yet be detected 

 in our own island, particularly in North Britain, whence I have information of at least two that I 

 cannot reconcile with any description. Our smaller mammifers have been too much neglected by 

 naturalists. The above-mentioned mouse (Hf. messorius), which Mr. White has the merit of 

 discovering, is an extremely beautiful little species, common in many districts of the south 

 of England, and is more allied to the house-mouse (M. domesticus) than to the common field- 

 mouse or "jumper-mouse," as the latter is termed in Surrey (M- sylvaticus), but is a livelier 

 and more active species than either, and more scansorial in its make, having longer and more 

 flexile toes, and a considerable muscular power in the tail, by means of which it is enabled to 

 obtain a firmer hold of whatever it is climbing on, by slightly coiling this organ around it, but 

 which does not exactly amount to what is ordinarily designated a prehensile power (as has been 



