THE LONG-TAILED FIELD MOUSE 



last kick in the relentless grip of the hunter of 

 the night. The owl draws its wings together, 

 stands up, takes the mouse by the head, gives 

 its skull a sharp pinch, gulps the body down 

 head first, pauses for a minute with the tail 

 hanging out of the corner of its beak, gives 

 another gulp, gets the tail down, looks thought- 

 ful for a moment, then shakes itself, takes to 

 the wing, and is gone to look for another mouse. 

 So it goes on until satisfied, and many mice 

 disappear never to be seen by their friends again. 

 All the same, numbers of long-tailed mice live 

 out in the fields well on into the winter, or at 

 any rate the late autumn, for the scattered 

 pieces of com afford them good living for a 

 long time. At last food gets scarce, the 

 stores in the holes get low, no more grain is to 

 be found in the stubble, the ploughing has 

 begun too, so the mice begin to move. Then 

 it is that they come to the houses, out-buildings, 

 and gardens. Every winter they come to my 

 home, getting even into the house, and some- 

 times committing suicide by tumbhng into the 

 milk pans in the larder ! But the mice that do 

 this are not the ordinary long-tailed field mice, 

 but a larger kind known as the yellow-necked 

 mouse. This one is larger and handsomer than 



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