OF SELBORNE. 59 



weather, which he believed would puzzle me. I called 

 to see it this summer, not knowing what to expect: 



greatly surprised me. She was a beautiful little animal, and her various 

 attitudes, in cleaning her face, head, and body with her paws, were 

 peculiarly graceful and elegant. For a few days after I received this 

 mouse, I neglected to give it any water; but when I afterwards put 

 some into the cage, she lapped it with great eagerness. After lapping, 

 she always raised herself on her hind feet, and cleaned her head with 

 her paws. She continued even to the time of her death exceedingly shy 

 and timid ; and whenever I put into her cage any favourite food, such as 

 grains of wheat or maize, she would eat them before me. On the least 

 noise or motion, however, she immediately ran off, with the grains in her 

 mouth, to her hiding place. 



" One evening, as I was sitting at my writing desk and the animal 

 was playing about in the open part of its cage, a large blue fly happened 

 to buzz against the wires : the little creature, although at twice or thrice 

 the distance of her own length from it, sprang along the wires with the 

 greatest agility, and would certainly have seized it had the space be- 

 tween the wires been sufficiently wide to have admitted her teeth or 

 paws to reach it. I was surprised at this occurrence, as I had been led 

 to believe that the harvest mouse was merely a granivorous animal. I 

 caught the fly, and made it buzz in my fingers against the wires. The 

 mouse, though usually shy and timid, immediately came out of her 

 hiding-place, and, running to the spot, seized and devoured it. From 

 this time I fed her with insects whenever I could get them ; and she 

 always preferred them to every other kind of food that I offei'ed her. 



" When this mouse was first put into her cage, a piece of fine flannel 

 was folded up into the dark part of it as a bed, and I put some grass 

 and bran into the large open part. In the course of a few days all the 

 grass was removed; and, on examining the cage, I found it very neatly 

 arranged between the folds of the flannel and rendered more soft by 

 being mixed with the nap of the flannel, which the animal had torn off 

 in considerable quantity for the purpose. The chief part of this opera- 

 tion must have taken place in the night, for although the mouse was 

 generally awake and active during the day time, yet I never once 

 observed it employed in removing the grass. 



" On opening its nest about the latter end of October, I remarked that 

 there were among the grass and wool at the bottom about forty grains of 

 maize. These appeared to have been arranged with some care and 

 regularity, and every grain had the corcule, or growing part, eaten out, 

 the lobes only being left. This seemed so much like an operation 

 induced by the instinctive propensity that some quadrupeds are endowed 

 with for storing up food for support during the winter months, that I 

 soon afterwards put into the cage about a hundred additional grains of 

 maize. These were all in a short time carried away ; and on a second 

 examination I found them stored up in the manner of the former. But 

 though the animal was well supplied with other food, and particularly 

 with bread, which it seemed very fond of; and although it continued 



