
House Mouse 
pressly designed to keep a family of mice comfortable and safe. 
When hungry they have only to penetrate the hay which is 
piled high about them, and explore the fragrant labyrinths between 
the stems of herd-grass and clover for seeds and dried field- 
strawberries, and the dessicated bodies of crickets and grass- 
hoppers pitched up with the hay when it was unloaded from 
the rack the summer before. I have often in mid-winter come 
across dried strawberries in the hay, which still possessed every 
bit of their June sweetness; what a feast one of those would 
make for a foraging mouse in mid-winter! 
Then there are the scaffolds of corn fodder, containing hidden 
treasures in the shape of whole ears overlooked in the husking, any 
one of which would be enough to support a family of mice for weeks. 
Beyond a doubt the lives of these mice of the barn are rendered 
more interesting and worth while, by the simple possibility of 
discovering some such treasure as this at any moment. 
Compare this with the life of those living in the granaries, 
encompassed on all sides by bins of ripe corn, and with never a 
change of diet except what is supplied by the capture of stray 
spiders and bugs. 
Sometimes at night the mice of the hay mows descend 
to the floor and join those which have their holes in the out- 
of-the-way corners of the barn, in their search for meat scattered 
about the bins where stock was fed. 
Many of them, instead of living in the mortises of the tim- 
ber, make round nests of grass and shredded corn leaves 
and husks in the recesses of the hay or in the middle of a 
bundle of corn fodder. 
These, though safe enough at first, are sooner or later sure 
to be routed out by the farmer, and may well consider them- 
selves fortunate if they are without helpless families at the time. 
Being less exposed to the weather and changes of tempera- 
ture ‘aan are creatures living out-of-doors, mice breed at all times 
and seasons; and almost any time during the winter, the fret- 
ful youngsters may be heard squeaking in their nests, resentful 
perhaps of the discipline brought to bear upon them by their 
parents. At first they are hardly larger than blue-bottle flies, pink, 
wrinkled and transparent like shrimps; it is no exaggeration to 
say that any substance on which they rest may be seen through 
their diminutive bodies. 
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