THE FIELD MOUSE 529 



a family of young, each probably a third of her own size, 

 attached to her. 



Some authorities, e.g. Bonhote, speak of a domed nursery 

 built above the ground ; and Mr Cocks has not infrequently 

 found such during haymaking. In the autumn, according to 

 Mr Adams, breeding-nests may be commonly found under road- 

 side heaps of hedge-cuttings. Usually the nest is placed below- 

 ground in the characteristic burrow (Figs. 86, 87). The 

 burrows are excavated in cornfields during the summer, and 

 the mice often remain in them in the stubbles until the plough 

 turns them out in the autumn.'- Sometimes the burrows appear 

 to be only of a temporary nature, a short steep tunnel, perhaps 

 only two or three inches long, leading to a simple enlargement 

 containing the usual murine globular nest of dried grass. The 

 more permanent burrows may be 3 feet deep, and in them the 

 mice commonly lay up stores of acorns, and stay through the 

 winter (L. E. Adams). 



Its voice in anger is described as somewhat high-pitched, 

 but it makes other sounds of a quiet, chuckling nature.^ 



Although its annual fluctuations do not appear to be so 

 violent as those of voles, it is said to have taken part in 

 the mouse plagues which devastated the Forest of Dean 

 in 1813-14 (see above at p. 451). As stated on p. 418 

 above, Mr Cocks observed great swarms of this species and 

 of the Bank Mouse, at Poynetts, Buckinghamshire, in 1900. 

 Macpherson mentions one which lived upwards of two years 

 in captivity. 



All predaceous creatures eat Field Mice when they have an 

 opportunity, and in some localities they are the favourite food 

 of owls, as shown by their pellets. Mr Aubyn Trevor-Battye 

 was informed' that in the dry summer of 1893 the Black-headed 

 Gulls* breeding on Scoulton Mere often brought "mice" to 

 their young, but these were more likely to have been the 

 diurnal Grass Mice than the nocturnal Field Mice. 



3610. Adams once saw a female escape from the bolt-hole of her nest with three or 

 four young hanging on ; these dropped off as the dam leapt away, the last one at 

 about 5 yards from the burrow. 



' Adams once found "a breeding-nest underground on a Yorkshire moor, just 

 like those in cornfields." 



^ Millais, 195. 3 Lydekker, 187. * Larus ridibundus, Linn. 



