92 ANIMAL LIFE OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



coloration described as golden brown. This is a feature that 

 at once attracts attention where this form occurs ; but there is 

 another distinction out of sight there being three additional 

 bony joints in the tail, that is thirty instead of the twenty-seven 

 in the tail of an ordinary Wood Mouse. Whether it is a really 

 distinct species or the typical form of the Wood Mouse is at 

 present open to question. It is found chiefly in the southern 

 and eastern portions of England, but its distribution also 

 includes Northamptonshire, Herefordshire, and Northum- 

 berland. 



Other local races have been distinguished also as distinct 

 species or sub-species under the name of Hebridean Field 

 Mouse (A. hebridensis) with the white of the under parts 

 tinted with buff; Fair Isle Field Mouse (A. fridariensis\ like 

 the Yellow-necked but without the collar ; St. Kilda Field 

 Mouse (A. hirtensis] with brown under parts ; and Bute Field 

 Mouse (A. butei\ darker, with shorter tail and ears. 



House Mouse (Mus mnsculus, Linn.). 



The most familiar, the most widely distributed and most 

 numerous of the mammals of our country, the Common or House 

 Mouse, stands in little need of nice description. Although of a 

 timid and retiring nature, it can on occasion exhibit not only 

 bold familiarity, but actual friendliness to mankind to which it 

 has been attached for ages, preferring to live in palace or hovel 

 with human beings to the open-air life of woods and fields. 

 Not that he is not to be found in the open air ; but then it is 

 mostly in the immediate neighbourhood of a house, where he 

 can make his runs in ricks of corn mountains of food. It is 

 this easy method of despoiling man of his goods that caused the 

 Mouse in ancient days to attach himself to the huge creature 

 that is so impotent in ridding himself of small adversaries. 

 The domestic Mouse is considered to have had its home, its 



