44 



THE BRITISH NATURE BOOK 



Wood Mouse. 



The Common Mouse is easily tamed, and the story of the prisoner whose 

 only friend was the mouse may be imitated in any house where food is regu- 

 larly put down for the mice, if any one likes to try the experiment ! 



9. The Long-tailed Field Mouse or WOOD MOUSE (Mus sylvaticus). There 

 are (says Mr. G. C. H. Barrett Hamilton) five vari- 

 eties of this species found in the British Isles ; but 

 the average length is 4 inches, and the colour a hand- 

 some fawn above and pure white below, except on 

 the chest, where there is a fawn spot ; the ears are 

 hairy on the outside. These points alone should 

 serve to distinguish it from the Common House 

 Mouse. Like the latter, the Field Mouse is a most 

 prolific creature, capable of breeding when two 

 months old, and having ten or twelve litters in a 

 year. As the average number of babies in the litter 

 is seven or eight, it is not difficult to calculate how 

 many children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren one original pair will 

 have in twelve months. 



If it were not for the work of owls, hawks, weasels, stoats, snakes, and 

 other rodent-eating creatures, these mice would devastate the country. Foxes 

 also eat them, and rooks and crows dig up their nests and swallow the helpless, 

 naked litter. 



This mouse is, perhaps, the handsomest of all our British mice, and I 

 confess I have always had compunction in killing it. Some years ago one of 

 them discovered the advantages as a food supply of my outdoor aviary, and 

 took up his abode in the ivy close by. When my birds were fed, the mouse 

 would appear the moment 

 I retired and feed with 

 them. In this case I 

 found the mouse tenant- 

 ing an old robin's nest ; 

 but the Wood Mice can 

 burrow if they wish (they 

 often use the moles' 

 runs), or can build a 

 round, woven nest of 

 their own in hedges or 

 low herbage or wheat. 

 They store up large quan- 

 tities of food, wheat, bar- 

 ley, oats, acorns, haws, hazel nuts, etc., upon which they feed during the winter. 

 There is little doubt that this is the " wee timorous beastie " of Burns's 

 famous poem, and not, as Sir Harry Johnston points out, the Harvest Mouse, 

 which is rare in Scotland. 



Wood Mouse jumping. 



