252 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR 



There seems to be but little life to attract the 

 lover of Nature along one of these uncomfortable 

 paths. Sometimes a magpie, disturbed in fancied 

 security, utters a shaking alarm-cry ; farther off 

 a jay may screech unseen ; sometimes a wood- 

 pigeon passes overhead ; a few gnats dance in the 

 shade ; the stream murmurs ; and that is all. 



Yet we are in a city of little quadrupeds mice. 

 The dead grass lying close and dense beside the 

 path, like swathes of hay, conceals the highways 

 and byeways of a numerous population. Part the 

 matted grasses, and you discover mouse-paths 

 leading in every direction, along which the mice 

 and voles can run without being seen by their 

 arch-enemy the owl. On inspection these covered 

 roads are found to be wonderfully clean, and it is 

 obvious that the mice and voles practice what is 

 certainly an elementary system of sanitation. 

 Their behaviour in a cage suggests the same con- 

 clusion. The sites of the nests are carefully 

 chosen. In summer a nest can generally be found 

 in a dense growth of wayside grasses, but the 

 hoards of nuts, beechmast, and other edible 

 treasures are less easily discovered. 



