398 WILD ANIMALS 
soever they go. Everywhere these mice multiply with great 
rapidity. It is claimed that a single pair under favorable 
conditions will develop a family of roo in twelve months. 
As compared with other species the house mouse has a slender 
body, large ears and eyes, pointed snout, and long tail. The 
amount of property destroyed annually by these mice is very 
large, but their habits are too well known to require descrip- 
tion here. 
Field Mice or Meadow Mice live in open fields and 
meadows. They are thicker-set little animals than the house 
mouse, with shorter ears and 
shorter tail, and they are 
slower in their movements. 
Their head and body are 
about 4% inches in length 
and the tail 14 inches; their 
color is reddish brown above, 
and whitish gray beneath. 
There are fifty or sixty kinds of these field mice, and some 
of them may be found in every part of the country. They 
feed on roots and grasses and grain, and in winter, when these 
things are difficult to find, they often eat the bark of young 
fruit trees and kill them. It is when grain and corn are in 
the shock that they live off the fat of the land, and on re- 
moving the shock we often find a nest full of them beneath it. 
Field mice form a leading item in the diet of many hawks 
and owls, and they are also hunted by weasels, foxes, skunks, 
and other flesh-eating mammals. In some regions where the 
animals that prey upon them have been destroyed, these 
mice have become so numerous as to form a serious pest. 
White-footed Mice or Deer Mice.— There are about 
seventy kinds of white-footed mice, — enough to supply 
FreLpD or Mrapow Movusr 
