S24 MURID^— APODEMUS 



not touching almonds or grass ; crocus bulbs were eaten 

 readily, but acorns were, with the exception of carrion (their 

 fellows. Bank Mice and Shrews), the favourite food; "my 

 captives did not care for haws, though they preferred them to 

 hips ; this was doubtless because they had the choice of so 

 many dainties." Lataste's captives fed on grains, bread, salad, 

 carrots (little), potatoes (little), nuts and almonds especially ; 

 sloes appear in the list given by Oldham and Coward ^ ; when 

 wild, ^ they eat the seeds of butcher's broom and are fond of 

 carrots. Bell (ipse, ed. ii., 294) mentions stores of acorns, nuts, 

 corn, various seeds and roots ; Mr Steele Elliott,^ in addition to 

 some of these, found haws, holly berries, and fungi, e.g.. Boletus 

 badius and Paxillus involutes, in winter stores ; cherry stones 

 in store were found by Mr St John ^ ; hips and blackberry 

 seeds are mentioned by Mr C. Oldham,' slow-worms by MrW. 

 H. P. Saunders,^ eggs by Mr E. T. Danberry^; strawberries 

 in heaps were observed by Barrett- Hamilton — "the habit of 

 heaping its food being halfway towards storing." It has been 

 known, "in common with others of the family, to eat consider- 

 able quantities of putty without apparently suffering any ill 

 effects.^" A very extensive literature relating to their destruc- 

 tiveness may be found in the periodicals devoted to gardening. 

 About 300 were trapped in a fortnight at a crocus bed by 

 Heatley Noble (Millais, 190). These mice attack lily and 

 hyacinth bulbs as well ; on the other hand, their attacks on 

 the latter are said to have indicated to Dutch growers a 

 method of increasing the bulbs by splitting (Millais, 190). 

 Service states^ it to be very destructive to indoor fruit, as 

 peaches, nectarines, tomatoes (ripe seeds). 



Colonel Davies Cooke (in Forrest, North Wales, 50) 

 describes it as entering and robbing beehives at Mold, and 

 William Thompson (iv., 15) mentions two nests found in a 

 beehive at Fort William, near Belfast, the mice having entered by 

 the same aperture as the bees ; numbers of the mice were caught 



1 Op. cit. 2 G. Rope, op. cit, 204 ; and Millais. 



^ Journ. Birm. Nat. Set. and Phil. Soc, 1896-9. 



* Nat. Hist, and Sport in Moray, 234. 



« Zoologist, 1900, 421. 8 Field, 27th April and 4th May 1907. 



' Nature Notes, 1899 (1900, Z. 157). 



8 Aflalo, 75. 9 Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist, 1896, 205. 



