50 NATURAL HISTORY 



hear any more about those birds which I suspected were 

 MerulcB torquatce. 1 



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. 2 

 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 domesticus medius weighs, 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 vegetation in general must have 

 suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that some 

 days were more severe than any since the year 1739-40. 1 



1 See antea, p. 44. 



2 It is perhaps not generally known that the tail of the harvest mouse 

 is prehensile, and is in consequence of great service to the little animal 

 when descending the wheat stalks amongst which its nest is usually 

 suspended. In "The Zoologist" for 1843, p. 289, will be found a 

 woodcut in illustration of this fact as observed by the Rev. Pemberton 

 Bartlett. ED. 



3 A full account of the effects of this short but intense frost will be 

 found in Letter LXI. to the Hon. Daines Barrington. 



