THE LONG-TAILED FIELD MOUSE 



In ordinary times, however, a mother mouse 

 is lucky who rears half her young, for cats and 

 dogs, foxes and other wild creatures, hunt for 

 the carefully hidden nurseries, baby mice being 

 dainty morsels of which they are all very fond. 

 I have found nests in holes underground, on 

 the surface beneath heaps of hedge brushings, 

 under fallen logs, and in old tree stumps. 



To return for a moment to the handsome 

 yellow-neck field mouse, I must mention, before 

 closing this description of the long-tailed field 

 mice, that the yellow-necked mouse, though 

 so common in some parts of the country, 

 especially the West-Midland counties, where 

 sometimes it is a perfect nuisance in houses 

 and gardens, is in other parts just as un- 

 common, and so far has not been found in 

 Scotland or Ireland. 



(The Sylvaticus group are most variable mice, and 

 quite a number of species and sub-species are now 

 known from the European area. It is a most inter- 

 esting feature of our British mammalian fauna how 

 groups of these mice isolated on islands have come 

 to differ from the mainland stock, several new forms 

 having lately been described from the islands off the 

 coast of Scotland. The common Long-tailed Field 

 Mouse of the British Isles, Apodemus s. sylvaticus, 

 is the same as that found on the Continent, 



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