70 Ways of Meadow Mice [SECOND WEEK 



folk, and probably make long journeys from their indi- 

 vidual nests. 



As far north as Canada and west to the Plains the 

 meadow or field mice are found, and everywhere they seem 

 to be happy and content. Most of all, however, they 

 enjoy the vicinity of water, and a damp, half-marshy 

 meadow is a paradise for them. No wonder their worst 

 enemies are known as marsh hawks and marsh owls; these 

 hunters of the daylight and the night well know where 

 the meadow mice love to play. 



These mice are resourceful little beings and when 

 danger threatens they will take to the water without 

 hesitation; and when the muskrat has gone the way of 

 the beaver, our ditches and ponds will not be completely 

 deserted, for the little meadow mice will swim and dive 

 for many years thereafter. 



Not only in the meadows about our inland streams, 

 but within sound of the breakers on the seashore, these 

 vigorous bits of fur find bountiful living, and it is said 

 that the mice folk inhabiting these low salt marshes always 

 know in some mysterious way when a disastrous high tide 

 is due, and flee in time, so that when the remorseless 

 ripples lap higher and higher over the wide stretches of 

 salt grass, not a mouse will be drowned. By some deli- 

 cate means of perception all have been notified in time, 

 and these, among the least of Nature's children, have run 

 and scurried along their grassy paths to find safety on 

 the higher ground. 



These paths seem an invention of the meadow mice, 

 and, affording them a unique escape from danger, they 



