236 GNAWING ANIMALS 



and in the desert regions, where animal life is very scarce 

 (and rapidly becoming more so!) these pretty little creatures 

 seem much more worthy of notice. I have many times 

 found them nesting in cavernous and ill-smelling buffalo 

 carcasses, and in the brain cavity or between the jaws of 

 buffalo skulls from which the skin had not been removed by 

 the hide hunters. 



In some places I have lain awake at night to hate mice, 

 for cause, and wish them all dead, by all manner of violent 

 deaths; but on a bleak and wind-shaven Montana plain 

 where the bleaching skulls of thousands of slaughtered buf- 

 falo lie staring heavenward in mute protest against man's 

 inhumanity, an agile White-Footed Mouse, scurrying out of 

 its warm nest of buffalo hair between the jaws of a buffalo 

 skull, appeals not in vain for my sympathy and protection. 

 Out on the Great Plains the w r orld always seems large enough 

 to contain us both. The great buffalo range of 1883 is now 

 so barren of wild life that to-day even wild mice are objects 

 of interest. 



Many times in their wanderings from one buffalo carcass 

 to another, these mice have travelled over smoothly shaven 

 prairie divides miles away from all proper shelter. In the 

 West, however, they are found most frequently in the brush 

 and timber of stream valleys, where the rank weeds and 

 grasses produce seed on which they feed. In the eastern 

 United States they are found in nearly all agricultural 

 regions. They are active climbers, possess a wide range of 

 intelligence, and nest in all sorts of places, from ground 

 burrows up to hollows in trees twenty feet from the ground. 



