HARVEST MOUSE. 287 



Although it is certainly to Gilbert White that we owe 

 the first published account of this elegant little animal as 

 indigenous to this country, it appears to have been seen, 

 though without exciting due attention, by Montagu, who, 

 in the seventh volume of the Linnean Transactions, records 

 his having seen it in Wiltshire before the discovery of it 

 in Hampshire by the former naturalist. White communi- 

 cated his discovery to Pennant, who immediately published 

 it, with the acknowledgment of his authority, in the second 

 edition of his British Quadrupeds ; and again in the subse- 

 quent editions, without that acknowledgment. From this 

 source it has been copied into almost every subsequent 

 work on British mammalia, and with but little addition 

 to our knowledge as to its habits, with the exception of 

 Montagu in the place alluded to, Bingley in his Animal 

 Biography, and Dr. Gloger in the Transactions of the 

 German Academy, who have thrown much light upon 

 many interesting points in their economy, both in a state 

 of nature and in confinement. The most complete epitome 

 of the information thus scattered, is to be found in a note 

 to the recent edition of White's Selborne, by our lamented 

 friend, Mr. E. T. Bennett, whose loss at the moment of 

 its completion shed a gloom over the appearance of that 

 delightful book which he so much enriched with his varied 

 and extensive information. 



The Harvest Mouse has now been found in most parts 

 of England, amongst others in Hampshire, Wiltshire, 

 Gloucestershire, Devonshire, and Cambridgeshire — in the 

 latter of which counties it was often seen by the father 

 of the author of the former edition probably not less 

 than ninety years ago, and described by him as a third 

 species of Field Mouse. It is commonly carried in 

 sheaves of corn into wheat-ricks or into barns, and lives 

 and multiplies in such situations with great rapidity. 



