Meadow Mouse 



having seen so much as one solitary meadow mouse swimming for 

 his life there. 



Their paths are made by gnawing off the short stiff marsh grass 

 close down to the roots leaving an even roadway something more than 

 an inch wide. The closely ranked grass on either side bends just 

 enough to meet overhead for a screen against the prying eyes of hawks. 



The grass that is cut away to make the paths disappears com- 

 pletely, probably having been eaten by the mice, though when it comes 

 to calculating the amount removed in the construction of the miles and 

 miles of little roads that thread the meadows one cannot help won- 

 dering just how much a meadow mouse is capable of consuming in 

 the course of a season, for they do not live upon grass alone; the isles 

 between the stems of the fox grass and black grass swarm with 

 brown sand-hoppers and various other salt-loving creatures which I 

 am inclined to think furnish the principal incentive that calls the 

 meadow mice away from the uplands; diminutive shellfish and other 

 small fry are also eaten by them. 



Meadow mice inhabit alike meadows and pasture land, orchards, 

 gardens and cornfields and, wherever the lawns are not kept too 

 closely trimmed and the cats are not too officious, readily take up 

 their abode about houses, especially where there are woodpiles 

 beneath which they can find shelter. 



In wet ground every stranded piece of driftwood and fallen fence 

 board is made to serve as roof for their crooked galleries and they 

 frequently make their nests of withered grass in such places. 



They also dig simple burrows hardly a foot in depth,having nests 

 at the bottom where the young mice pass the first period of their 

 lives; these young mice soon learn to ascend the almost perpendicular 

 shafts leading up to the sunlight and may often be seen poking their 

 stub noses out into the air to learn what the world is like. 



In the winter they have their nests on the surface of the ground 

 beneath the snow, their galleries leading off through the matted grass 

 in all directions. I have found these nests with young ones as early as 

 February and think it quite possible that they may be in the way of 

 breeding throughout the winter. 



Their tunnels beneath the snow are being constantly extended, 

 allowing them to ramble about and explore the stubble for grass seeds 

 and tender shoots in comparative safety. They have frequent 

 doorways admitting them to the upper air, and at night are often 

 out scampering back and forth across the snow, leaving an 



"5 



