WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



the common long-tailed mouse, its colours are 

 brighter and cleaner, and across its throat is a 

 band of yellow like a collar, to which it owes 

 its name. In the smaller kind there may be 

 a spot of yellow on the chest, but there is never 

 the complete band, and more often than not 

 there is not even a spot of buff. The smaller 

 mouse looks dull and dark when put beside its 

 big relation. At one time these two types were 

 thought to belong to the one kind of mouse, 

 one scientific name was considered enough, and 

 big and little were known as Mus sylvaticus, or 

 the ' mouse of the woods.' As long-tailed 

 mice are found in all sorts of places, besides 

 coverts, this was not a good name ; however, as 

 it was that first given it has had to be kept, 

 and to this day the smaller long-tailed or wood 

 mouse is known as sylvaticus, but now the 

 bigger type has a name as well and is called 

 A. flavicollis wintoni, or the yellow-necked 

 mouse of de Winton. This is because it was 

 Mr. de Winton who first recognised that the 

 mouse with the yellow throat was not only 

 bigger than the other long-tailed mouse, but 

 that each kind kept to itself, and did not 

 mix with the other. ^ 



» W. E. de Winton, The Zoologist, vol. xviii., 1894, p. 441. 

 128 



