SS6 MURID^— MICROMYS 



perhaps, would call the species Mus minimus ") ; and Ix., 2nd September 

 1774, and the first edition of his Nat. Hist. Selborne, 1789) was 

 undoubtedly first in the field of publication. Meanwhile, in 1771 and 

 1778, Pallas had described the Russian form, and his name takes pre- 

 cedence for the species as a whole. Pennant described the animal in 

 the 1768 edition of his British Zoology (ii., 498) and acknowledged 

 White as his informant, but in subsequent editions this acknowledgment 

 did not appear, an omission probably due, as Alfred Newton informed 

 us, to White's own modesty, for he himself corrected the proofs of 

 Pennant's second edition. Since that date the mouse has been well 

 known, although rarely seen by naturalists, except those of some of the 

 southern and eastern counties, to whom and to Bingley, who wrote an 

 excellent account of it in 1809, science is chiefly indebted for additional 

 details of its economy. 



Distribution : — The Harvest Mouse is a widely distributed species. 

 In Europe its range extends from Scotland and Denmark southwards 

 to the Pyrenees, and, in Italy, to the neighbourhood of Naples ; east- 

 wards from Britain it occurs throughout central Eurasia to Japan, 

 where it lives in southern Hondo and on the islands of Shikoku, Kiushiu, 

 and Tsu-shima. In eastern Asia its range extends southwards from 

 the Transbaikal and Ussuri districts to the south of China (Sze-Chuan 

 and Fokien). 



It is not known from Norway (CoUett); according to Lilljeborg 

 and Winge it is also absent from Sweden, although Blasius and 

 Clermont mention it as occurring there; but if really present in 

 that country, it must have a very limited distribution. It occurs in 

 Finland ; in Denmark (Winge) ; and is one of the most common 

 species in Schleswig-Holstein (Boie). It is absent from the whole of 

 Iberia (Cabrera, Scharff), and probably from the extreme south of 

 Italy. 



In Britain it may, according to Millais, be regarded as generally but 

 locally distributed south of Aberdeenshire, though in Scotland it is 

 much scarcer than in England ; according to Tomes (Bell, ed. ii., 288) it 

 is common, but somewhat local, appearing in considerable numbers in 

 certain fields or farms, but not occurring in others, although near. 

 Originally found by White and Montagu in Hampshire and Wiltshire, 

 this mouse has now been recorded from most English counties. In 

 Hampshire it is universally distributed, and it occurs also, though less 

 commonly, on Wight (Kelsall). In the Weald of Sussex it was very 

 abundant about fifty years ago, but has now almost disappeared with 

 the introduction of close-cutting reaping machines (Millais) — to which 

 cause field-naturalists generally attribute the growing scarcity of the 

 Harvest Mouse observed in other counties. It was at one time so 

 numerous in the wealden districts of Kent and Sussex as to commit 



