56 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



had their legs badly broken. I found the stomach of one quite 

 emptj% but that of the other was crammed with the pupse of some 

 dipterous insect. A Shelldrake was killed in the neighbourhood, 

 the only one I heard of last year. Numerous Redshanks were to 

 be seen in the markets, and Kingfishers seemed plentiful, judging 

 from the numbers sent to be stuffed. 



HABITS OF THE HARVEST MOUSE. 

 By G. T. Rope. 



Having at various times kept the Harvest Mouse, Mus mes- 

 sor'uis, in confinement, I have observed certain little peculiarities 

 in their habits and manner of life which may be worth recording. 

 First, as to their food and manner of feeding, I have invariably 

 found them exliibit a marked preference for wheat, rejecting while 

 that is to be had all other kinds of grain. They will, however, 

 eat both oats and barley when their favourite food is withheld. 

 Unlike most of the Britisli mice and rats in a state of captivity, 

 they do not care for bread, though perhaps they might eat it if 

 kept without corn. I have found M. sylvaticus and our two 

 smaller Voles prefer bread to almost any other kind of food. 

 Dr. H. Laver, of Colchester, in a communication relating to the 

 habits of these mice in Essex, which lately api^eared in ' The 

 Field,' states that the stacks in which they are most likely to be 

 found, in his neighbourhood, are those of oats and wheat, and 

 sometimes barley ; adding that he finds them more frequently 

 in corn stacked in the fields, than in that which is carted home.- 

 In this district I have found them as often in stackyards attached 

 to farm buildings as in outlying stacks, and principally in those 

 of wheat, oats not being much grown in these parts. Last year a 

 great many were captured here in a barley- stack, but wheat- 

 stacks seem to be their principal winter rendezvous in this district. 

 After the stacks are threshed, these mice often remain in the 

 straw throughout the winter. Their manner of disposing of a 

 grain of wheat is as follows: — Sitting up and holding the grain 

 in a horizontal position between the fore paws (one being placed 

 at each end), the little animal begins dexterously and raj)idly 

 turning it round, like a wheel on its axle, at the same time 

 applying to it the edge of his sharp incisors, and by their means 



