The Wood Mouse. 



211 



THE WOOD MOUSE. 



The Wood, or long-tailed field, Mouse (Mus sylvaticus) 

 is quite common in this neighbourhood. The naturalist 

 of Selborne seems to have been unacquainted with it; 

 therefore I suppose it must either be rare in that district 

 of country or altogether absent from it. Here it is too 

 plentiful, having this year done some damage to my 

 potato crop, in the digging of which, the other day, my 

 men turned up a nest from among the weeds and haulm. 

 It was empty, the young, full-grown, having gone out of 

 it. But remaining in proximity, two unfortunates fell 



LONG-TAILED FIELD MOUSE. 



victims to the ruthless diggers, who never allow animals 

 of the order Muridce to escape. On examining the life- 

 less pair, I found one to be an "old buck," no doubt the 

 father of the family ; the other a young individual, of the 

 same sex, with like certainty the son. The old mouse 

 measured seven and a half inches from snout to tip of 

 tail the tail being exactly one-half, or just the length of 

 the head and body. The squirrel or dormouse colour, 

 which the Selborne naturalist speaks of as characterizing 



