618 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



their daily food, but carried them away, laid them up in their 

 treasuries for a winter store, thus thinning the locust armies far 

 more effectually than man could have done. 



We now come to the Common Mouse of our houses (Mus 

 musculus). 



This little animal is a notable house-builder, making nests out 

 of various materials, and placing them in various situations. 

 There seems to be hardly any place in which a Mouse will not 

 establish itself, and scarcely any materials of which it will not 

 make its nest. Hay, leaves, straw, bitten into suitable lengths, 

 roots, and dried herbage, are the usual materials employed by 

 this animal when it is in the country. 



When it becomes a town mouse and lives in houses, it accom- 

 modates itself to circumstances, and is never in want of a situa- 

 tion for a nest or materials wherewithal to make a comfortable 

 house. It will use up old rags, tow, bits of rejected cord, paper, 

 and any such materials as can be found straggling about a house; 

 and if it can find no fragments, it helps itself very unceremo- 

 niously to, and cuts to pieces books, newspapers, curtains, or gar- 

 ments. 



Many instances of remarkable Mouse-nests are recorded, among 

 which the following are worthy of mention. 



As is usual at the end of autumn, a number of flower-pots had 

 been set aside in a shed, in waiting for the coming spring. To- 

 ward the middle of winter the shed was cleared out and the flow- 

 er-pots removed. While carrying them out of the shed the own- 

 er was rather surprised to find a round hole in the mould, and 

 therefore examined it more closely. In the hole was seen, not a 

 plant, but the tail of a mouse, which leaped from the pot as soon 

 as it was set down. Presently another mouse followed from the 

 same aperture, showing that a nest lay beneath the soil. On re- 

 moving the earth, a neat and comfortable nest was found, made 

 chiefly of straw and paper, the entrance to which was the hole 

 through which the inmates had fled. 



The most curious point in connection with this nest was, that 

 although the earth in the pot seemed to be intact except for the 

 round hole, which might have been made by a stick, none was 

 found within it. The ingenious little architects had been clever 

 enough to scoop out the whole of the earth and to carry it away, 

 so as to form a cavity for the reception of their nest. They did 



