54 



THE NATURE BOOK 



many notes of Field Mice and Red-backed 

 Meadow Mice aloft, but none as yet of 

 Short-tailed ]\Ieado\v ]\Iice. A good tail 

 seems essential for the balance. 



One must do more, however, than trust 

 to chance to study Field ]\Iice worthily. 

 The best plan is to mark their holes. I 

 do not think the hedgerow IMouse is 

 normal. Field Mice are sociable, gre- 

 garious folk, and live for choice in small 

 communities a foot or so beneath the 

 surface. The site of some long-fallen tree 

 (whose roots remain) is ideal burrowing 

 ground, and here one may often coimt 

 on finding Field Mice, Red-backed Meadow 

 Mice, and Shrew Mice together. 



The entrances are common gi'ound, 

 but what goes on below one has no means 

 of knowing. There may be disagreements. 

 The association of the three species, how- 

 ever, is so usual that one is driven to sup- 

 pose that either these disagreements are 

 temporary, or that the room for them is 

 larger than would appear from the outside. 



To anyone gifted with good sight the 

 observation of Field Mice, once their hole 

 has been discovered, is not particularly 

 difficult. Even those whose sight is 

 defective can manage comfortably enough 

 with a glass, though they are somewhat 

 handicapped by the need of adjusting it. 

 The golden rule is to remain still, and 

 to do this you must secure an easy posi- 

 tion before the mouse appears. Provided 

 you keep still, you may do anything in 

 reason. You may smoke, you mav bring 

 your knitting (if you knit quietly), you 

 may bring a friend (if you converse in 

 even tones). So surely as Mouse is at 

 home, and the weather is fit for Mouse 

 to be abroad, so surely will Mouse 

 appear. He has his own set times, and 

 these you must discover. The twilight 

 suits him generally, so does a change to 

 better weather, calm after storm, sun- 

 shine after rain, for, though nocturnal, 

 lie must have fresh air, and wet or windy 

 nights mean close confinement. 



Watch as you may, you seldom see 

 his exit. The human eye, unlike the 

 cat's, grows weary with long waiting. 

 Mind-pictures float in front of it. Yet, 

 if you have kept still, this matters little. 

 A leaf flirts two feet from the hole, and 

 instantly you wake again. You stare 

 intently ; all seems as before : the leaf, 



the hole, the nut 3'ou placed beside the 

 hole. ]\Iouse is underneath the leaf, 

 and watching yoii. This is the crucial 

 moment. One wonders what is passing 

 in that brain of his. The sense of the 

 ]irime danger, man ? or just the sense 

 of danger ? Man moves with crackling 

 tread and swings his arms. You are 

 quite still and motionless. Therefore 3'Ou 

 are a tree-trunk. There is a scent of 

 man about, but man's scent clings to 

 everything. 



I think this is his reasoning ; I gauge 

 it from his actions. 



His nose points from the leaf's near 

 side. You feel it sniffing. You feel his 

 whiskers shiver. Then come his eyes, 

 and then he stands forth openly. He 

 stares at you, and you stare back. A 

 long, queer, breathless, spellbound pause, 

 and he prepares to clean himself. 



A false start that time; he must look 

 again. Another pause. But now he 

 seems more satisfied. He sits back on 

 his haunches. His wee hands jerk towards 

 his face and. quivering down the length 

 of it, are moistened by his tongue. Thence 

 to his nose and eyes and ears in fiuttery, 

 light caresses. Thence to his tongue once 

 more. He twists about and nibbles at his 

 sides, his hands now two unravelling 

 combs which grip the fur and press it to 

 his mouth. He drags a hind-leg forward 

 and, grasping it between his hands, licks 

 it to spotless whiteness. While it still 

 gleams, he plies it on his ear. He backs 

 an inch past his own tail, grips the free 

 end, and polishes the rings. 



And all the while, his eyes have never 

 left you. 



Keep still the harder ; there is more 

 to see. 



He starts off running. He runs in dots 

 and dashes — queer little clockwork light- 

 ning runs ; queer little checks and pauses. 

 He seems to scent the nut. He pokes his 

 nose in likely places. His tail points 

 stiff. He swings this wav and that. You 

 try to sight the nut yourself — and fail. 

 Then only does it dawn on you that there 

 are two mice out ; one has the nut already. 

 Seeing the pair of them together, you 

 realise that one — the one you have been 

 watching — is small and slim and brown. 

 The other is a full-grown mouse, red- 

 backed, perhaps a Yellow-neck. 



