34 HARVEST MOUSE. 



that subject is remarkable : there were little short-winged 

 birds frequently coming on board the ship all the way from 

 our Channel quite up to the Levant, especially before squally 

 weather. 



What you suggest with regard to Spain is highly probable. 

 The winters of Andalusia are so mild, that, in all likelihood, 

 the soft-billed birds that leave us at that season may find 

 insects sufficient to support them there. 



Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and leisure, 

 should make an autumnal voyage into that kingdom, and 

 should spend a year there, investigating the natural history 

 of that vast country. Mr Willughby passed through that 

 kingdom on such an errand; but he seems to have skirted 

 along in a superficial manner, arid an ill humour, being much 

 disgusted at the rude, dissolute manners of the people. 



I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about the 

 swallows roosting on the aits of the Thames ; nor can I hear 

 any more about those birds which I suspected were meruke 

 torquatce. 



As to the small mice,* I have farther to remark, that though 

 they hang their nests for breeding up amidst the straws of the 

 standing corn, above the ground, yet I find that, in the winter, 

 they burrow deep in the earth, and make warm beds of grass ; 

 but their grand rendezvous seems to be in corn ricks, into 

 which they are carried at harvest. A neighbour housed an 

 oat rick lately, under the thatch of which were assembled near 

 a hundred, most of which were taken ; and some I saw. I 

 measured them, and found that, from nose to tail, they were 

 just two inches and a quarter, and their tails just two inches 

 long. Two of them, in a scale, weighed down just one copper 

 halfpenny, which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois ; 

 so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this 

 island. A full grown mus medius domesticus w r eighs, I find, 

 one ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as 

 much as the mouse above, and measures, from nose to rump, 

 four inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail. We have 

 had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. My 

 thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below 

 the freezing point, -within doors. The tender evergreens 

 were injured pretty much. It was very providential that the 

 air was still, and the ground well covered with snow, else 



* This is the harvest mouse, or mus messorius, of Shaw's 

 and first discovered by White. ED. 



