602 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



mankind, through its habits of storing up its winter stock of 

 provisions. Lately in the country about Odessa vast armies of 

 mice were seen, and evidently did much damage. Not only did 

 they eat the crops, but they swarmed into the houses in such 

 numbers that traps could hardly be set fast enough, twenty or 

 thirty being often taken in a single day. 



Hurtful though they were in some senses, they nevertheless 

 had their uses. The country is liable to the attacks of locusts, 

 which in that year happened to be particiilarly numerous. These 

 destructive insects, as is the case with many of their order, lay 

 their eggs enclosed in capsules, something like the well-known 

 egg-cases of our too common cockroach. The mice were very 

 fond of the egg-capsules, and not only devoured them as part of 

 their daily food, but carried them away, laid them up in their 

 treasuries for a winter store, thus thinning the locust armies far 

 more effectually than man could have done. 



We now come to the Common Mouse of our houses {Mus 

 rnvsculus). 



This little animal is a notable house-builder, making nests 

 out of various materials, and placing them in various situations. 

 There seems to be hardly any place in which a Mouse will not 

 establish itself, and scarcely any materials of which it will not 

 make its nest. Hay, leaves, straw, bitten into suitable lengths, 

 roots, and dried herbage, are the usual materials employed by 

 this animal when it is in the country. 



When it becomes a town mouse and lives in houses, it accom- 

 modates itself to circumstances, and is never in want of a situa- 

 tion for a nest or materials wherewithal to make a comfortable 

 house. It wUl use up old rags, tow, bits of rejected cord, paper, 

 and any such materials as can be found straggling about a house ; 

 and if it can find no fragments, it helps itseK very unceremo- 

 niously to, and cuts to pieces, books, newspapers, curtains, or 

 garments. 



Many instances of remarkable Mouse nests are recorded, 

 among which the following are worthy of mention. 



As is usual, at the end of autumn, a number of flower-pots 

 had been set aside in a shed, in waiting for the coming spring. 

 Towards the middle of winter, the shed was cleared out, and 

 the flower-pots removed. While carrying them out of the shed 



