THE HARVEST MOUSE. 239 



gant. For a few days after I received this mouse, I 

 neglected to give it any water ; but when I afterwards 

 put some in the cage, she lapped at it with great eager- 

 ness. After lapping, she always raised herself on her 

 hind feet, and cleansed her head with her paws. She 

 continued, even till the time of her death, exceedingly 

 shy and timid ; but whenever I put into the cage any 

 favourite food, such as grains of wheat or maize, she 

 would eat them before me. On the least noise or mo- 

 tion, however, she immediately ran off with the grains 

 in her mouth to her hiding place. 



" One evening, as I was sitting at my writing-desk, 

 and the animal was playing about in the open part of 

 its cage, a large blue fly happened to buzz against the 

 wires ; the little creature, although at twice or thrice 

 the distance of her own length from it, sprang along 

 the wires with the greatest agility, and would certainly 

 have seized it, had the space between the wires been 

 sufficiently wide to have admitted her teeth or paws to 

 reach it. I was surprised at this occurrence, as I had 

 been led to believe that the harvest mouse was merely 

 a granivorous animal. I caught the fly, and made it 

 buzz in my fingers against the wires. The mouse, 

 though usually shy and timid, immediately came out of 

 her hiding-place, and, running to the spot, seized and 



