104 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



mouse, the long- tailed field-mouse, and the house- 

 mouse. Of these the first is perhaps the most 

 interesting. Even where it occurs its distribution 

 is local, and it is seen only by those who seek out its 

 haunts. In certain respects a miniature squirrel, 

 the dormouse forms a connecting link between that 

 arboreal sprite and the true mouse. It has bright 

 black eyes and a bushy tail. In gnawing its food, 

 it sits upon its haunches, and feeds upon nuts and 

 berries. The creature runs with ease among and 

 upon the branches of brushwood, its tail carried over 

 its back. It becomes extremely fat at the beginning 

 of winter, lays up a store of food, and hibernates 

 during the cold season. The dormouse takes up its 

 abode in secluded and densely- wooded copses; and 

 it is among the sprays of the nut-bush tops that the 

 pretty creature may most frequently be seen. It is 

 here that it eats the pollen-covered catkins in spring, 

 the tender leaf-shoots in summer, and the rosy- 

 clustered nuts in autumn. 



Hazel copses, however, are not the only home of the 

 dormouse. We have found it as frequently in old 

 tangled lanes and brambled bypaths; lanes with 

 green carpetings that are rarely invaded. Trailing 

 larches tassel one old wall, ivy and woodbine hide 

 the other. Blackberries droop, and rosy, waxen 

 bilberries shine through the green. Stone-brambles 

 creep in flower and fruit over the rocks, and among 



