302 AMERICAN WHITE-FOOTED MOUSE. 



The White-footed Mouse is an exceedingly active species. It runs, 

 leaps, and climbs, with great facility. We have observed it taking up 

 its abode in a deserted squirrel's nest, thirty feet from the earth ; we 

 have seen a family of five or six scamper from a hollow in an oak that 

 had just been cut down ; we have frequently found them in the loft of 

 a corn-house or stable in Carolina ; and at times have discovered their 

 nests under stone-heaps or old logs, or in the ground. 



In New Jersej' their favourite resorts are isolated cedars growing on 

 the margins of damp places, where green briars (SmiJax rotuiidifolio, and 

 S. kerhaced) connect the branches with the ground, and along the stems 

 of which they climb expertly. 



When started from their nests in these trees, they descend along the 

 vines in safety to the earth. When thus disturbed, however, if the nest 

 is at some distance from the ground, they hesitate before they come 

 down, and go out on a branch perhaps, to scrutinize the vicinit)', and, if 

 not farther molested, appear satisfied, and again retreat to their nests. 

 They have been known to take possession of deserted birds' nests — such 

 as those of the cat-bird, red-winged starling, song thrush, or red-eyed fly- 

 catcher. 



In the northern part of New York we could always obtain specimens 

 from under the sheaves of ^vheat that were usually stacked in the 

 harvest fields for a few days before they were carried into the barn. We 

 have also occasionally found their nests on bushes, from five to fifteen 

 feet from the ground. They are in these cases constructed with nearly 

 as much art and ingenuity as the nests of the Baltimore Oriole. There 

 are several nests now lying before us, that were found near Fort Lee, 

 New Jersey. They are seven inches in length and four in breadth, the 

 circumference measuring thirteen inches ; they are of an oval shape and 

 are outwardly composed of dried moss and a few slips of the iimer bark 

 of some wild grape-vine ; other nests are more rounded, and are com- 

 posed of dried leaves and moss. We have sometimes thought that two 

 pair of these Mice might occupy the same nest, as ■we possess one, nine 

 inches in length and eight inches in diameter, which has two entrances, 

 six inches apart, so that in such a case the little tenants need not have 

 interfered with each other. The entrance in all the nests is from below, 

 and about the size of the animal. 



When we first discovered this kind of nest we were at a loss to decide 

 whether it belonged to a bird or a quadruped ; on touching the bush, 

 however, we saw the little tenant of this airy domicile escape. At our 

 next visit she left the nest so clumsily, and made her way along the 

 ground so slowly, that we took her up in our hand, when we discovered 



