Mice, Voles, and Rats 127, 
and when diving, surrounded by a track of 
air bubbles, it looks very pretty. I have 
several times picked them up dead far from 
water, so that they evidently travel long 
distances at times. The hind feet and under 
surface of the tail are. beautifully fringed 
with stiff hairs to assist them in their passage 
through the water. J have known the nest 
situated in the bottom of an old wall, not 
far from a ditch, contaming young a quarter 
grown at the end of June. The ordinary 
colour is a very deep brownish black above 
and silvery white beneath, but there is a 
melanie variety, of which I have obtained Sistograpn by 7. ANG UaFES PaGKORORE: 
several, that is almost black all -over, both HARVEST MOUSE. 
above and below. 
The Dormouse is far more common in the southern counties than in the north, 
and its nests may often be found amongst the brambles and the tangled undergrowth 
in plantations. In the autumn the dormouse lays up a quantity of fat, and having 
provided a store of food in case of need, it retires to vest for the winter. It is 
wonderfully agile and quick when climbing up in the hedges or undergrowth. <I have 
known young in the nest in Yorkshire as late as the 19th of September. 
The beautiful little Harvest Mouse is very local, but occurs in considerable 
quantities in some places, especially in the south-eastern counties. I have frequently 
kept it alive, and I had one for over two years in confinement. They are very 
amusing, and have a great partiality for blue-bottle flies. I have never known them to 
breed in confinement. They are very pugnacious. I once had six in a cage, and on 
going to look at them one morning I found all dead but one, and he succumbed to 
his injuries later on. Moreover the brains of nearly all the dead ones had been - 
partly devoured. The nests that I have seen have been formed on the cornstalks, a 
foot or so above the ground, and made by splittmg the stalks by means of their 
teeth and weaying them into a nest, but I believe at times they will build in thistles 
and large Tinpelliferous plants. 
The Long-tailed Field Mouse, pretty as it is with its long tail and ears and big 
prominent eyes, is a most destructive little creature. It works ihesroe amongst the crocus 
and other bulbs, eats the crowns out of lilies 
and similar plants, roots up the peas when 
first sown, and is also very destructive to 
blackberries and other things. The late 
Canon Atkinson, author of that interesting 
book, “Forty years in a Moorland Parish,” 
told me that they used to come in swarms 
into his church at Danby, in Yorkshire, and 
eat parts of the organ pipes. He set to 
work to trap them, and in one week 
captured over ninety. This mouse is often 
called the Wood Mouse, but it is quite as 
plentiful, if not more so, on arable land. 
In winter I have found it curled up in an — ee py ear eo eens: 
old hedge sparrow’s nest. It is very prolific, photograph by T. A. Metcaife, Pickering. 
and can be tamed without much trouble. LONG-TAILED FIELD MOUSE. 
