340 THE LONG-TAILED FIELD MOUSE. 



on the paths and highways in August 5"* but he does not 

 notice the curious fact, that during that month they are found 

 in a very weak state in such situations. 



The field mouse is a gentle and timid little creature, easily 

 tamed, and rendered perfectly familiar. Professor Bell says, 

 he has seen " several of them running out upon the breakfast 

 table of Dr. Leach, from whose hand or plate they would feed 

 without the least fear, and allow him to handle and play with 

 them as freely as the dormouse (Myoxus avellanarius , Desm.)." 



The female field mouse makes her nest very near the surface 

 of the ground,, and often in a thick tuft of grass -, and produces 

 from seven to ten at a litter, and probably has more than one 

 litter in the year. 



Gilbert White relates that, while his servants were pulling 

 off the lining of a hot-bed, an animal very nimbly leaped out 

 of it but made a most grotesque figure j " nor was it without 

 great difficulty that it could be taken : when it proved to be a 

 field mouse with three or four young clinging to her teats by 

 their mouths and feet. It was amazing that her desultory and 

 rapid motions did not oblige her litter to quit their hold, 

 especially as it appeared that they were so young, as to be 

 both naked and blind, "f 



More recently, Mr. Joseph Clarke says, that a nest having 

 been ploughed out of the ground at Saffron Walden, Essex, 

 the female mouse ran away, but very heavily and awkwardly, 

 and on being overtaken and killed, two young ones were found 

 clinging so tenaciously to her teats, that some force was neces- 

 sary to remove them from their dead parent. 



THE BARBARY MOUSE. (Mus Barbarus, Linn.) 



This species, the prettiest and most elegant of all, was first 

 described by Linnaeus in the addenda to the twelfth edition 



* Cyclopaedia of Natural Phenomena, p. 96. 



f Natural History of Selborne (1789), Part ii. Letter xiv. 



