THE FIELD MOUSE 527 



amassing^ stores of provisions in a separate chamber of its 

 burrow near its dwelling apartment or altogether apart, in 

 which work it is very diligent. Mr R. M. Barrington^ has 

 observed that captives covered up single grains of wheat with 

 the nose, like a dog, sometimes using the hind legs to scrape 

 together a heap of material over it. Unlike dogs, they hid 

 many things in the same place. 



It certainly does not hibernate, for it may be trapped 

 freely at the coldest part of the year. Charles St John^ 

 thought that on the approach of cold winds or rain they 

 shut themselves up in their underground habitations, closing 

 the apertures carefully, but corroborative evidence of this habit 

 is desirable. 



The Field Mouse is extremely prolific, and the female 

 produces several litters in a long polyoestrous sexual season, 

 which probably lasts the greater part of the year. 



Mr Barrington* found that young captured on ist October 

 first made a nest of grass when about thirty-six days old. 

 Of two females which, with a single male, survived to reach 

 maturity, the produce was as follows, young being first born 

 when the dams were about five and a half months old : — 



Female A. — 7th or 8th March, 3 young, ... days' interval 



(In the case of the last two litters identification was not absolutely certain, 

 one female having escaped.) 



Female B. — 19th March, 5 young, ... days' interval 

 i8th April, 5 „ 29 „ 



nth May, 5 „ 23 „ 



' A well-known habit : — 



" Saepe exiguus mus 

 Sub terris posuitque domos atque horrea fecit." 



Vergil, Georg., i., 181 ; but why the rooting of pigs has been by writer after writer, 

 at least from Pennant (1768) to Johnston (1903), supposed to be "chiefly owing 

 to their search after the concealed hoards of the Field Mice," is difficult to under- 

 stand. 



^ Op. cit, 123. 3 c. St John., Nat. Hist, and Sport in Moray, 1882, 234. 



* op. cit. 



