HARVEST MOUSE DEER. 47 



beds of grass ; but their grand rendezvous seems 

 to be in corn ricks, into which they are carried 

 at harvest. A neighbour housed an oat rick 

 lately, under the thatch of which were assembled 

 near .a hundred, most of which were taken ; and 

 some I saw. I measured them, and found that, 

 from nose to tail, they were just two inches and 

 a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. 

 Two of them, in a scale, weighed down just one 

 copper halfpenny, which is about the third of an 

 ounce avoirdupois ; so that I suppose they are 

 the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full- 

 grown mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one 

 ounce, lumping weight, which is more than six 

 times as much as the mouse above, and measures 

 from nose to rump four inches and a quarter, and 

 the same in its tail. We have had a very severe 

 frost and deep snow this month. [Jan. 1768.] 

 My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees 

 and a half below the freezing point, within doors. 

 The tender evergreens were injured pretty much. 

 It was very providential that the air was still, and 

 the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation 

 in general must have suffered prodigiously. There 

 is reason to believe that some days were more 

 severe than any since the year 1739-40. 



XIV. 



IP some curious gentleman would procure the 

 head of a fallow deer, and have it dissected, he 

 would find it furnished with two spiracula, or 

 breathing-places, besides the nostrils; probably 

 analogous to the puncta lachrymalla in the human 

 head. When deer are thirsty, they plunge their 

 noses, like some horses, very deep under water 



