THE HARVEST MOUSE 567 



and active as the House Mouse, nor a grand jumper like the 

 Field Mouse, and hence it is more easily caught by hand. It 

 is fond of frequenting tall, rank herbage growing by the sides 

 of ditches,^ especially such as have a little run of water through 

 them.'' Mr E. G. B. Meade-Waldo (in lit.) describes it as 

 loving hedgerows fringed with brambles, grass, and weeds. 

 In early spring he can always find it, before the herbage gets 

 strong, running on certain banks in and out of holes, and along 

 low branches ; in August he sees it climbing about the grass and 

 weeds. Unlike the Field Mouse, it is in the main diurnal, and in 

 captivity it is aroused to activity by light. In summer it shelters 

 itself during sleep, and rears its young, in a wonderful little 

 round nest of plaited grass blades suspended so neatly amongst 

 living plants as to have long excited the admiration of writers. 



In winter, according to Gilbert White, it burrows deep in 

 the ground, making there a warm nest of grass, in which it is 

 supposed to hibernate.* But in corn-growing districts, where 

 common, it seems to find all its wants more easily. Here it 

 is satisfied by the corn-stacks,* where it shares its quarters 

 with the House Mouse until threshing time, and exhibits no 

 sign of torpidity. It prefers ricks of oats and wheat to those 

 of barley,^ and the lower parts of the stacks, or the rubbish on 

 which they are built, to the upper parts ' ; after thrashing, it 

 may remain on in the straw.' Sometimes large numbers, 



' G. T. Rope, Zoologist, 1880, 57. 2 jj^ H. Laver {in lit.). 



^ "All mice and voles sleep fitfully during the winter, hardly ever moving if the 

 temperature falls below freezing-point, becoming active again in search of food when 

 milder weather returns. To this rule the Harvest Mouse is no exception. Mr 

 Thorburn caught one running in a hedgerow close to his house at Hascombe, Surrey, 

 in December 1904" (Millais, ii., 182). Mr Meade-Waldo {in lit.) has never seen it 

 in winter, except with the House Mouse in stacks. 



* Either carried in the sheaves or finding its way there naturally. Though 

 preferring corn-stacks it will also sometimes occupy hayricks (H. Laver, MS.), or 

 straw (Millais). 



' Perhaps because barley is too rich and indigestible, but English states that 

 captives " are quite indifferent as to what kind of grain they eat " ; and Patterson, 

 East Norfolk, 1905, 315, mentions many found in the bottoms of barley-stacks. 



^ Gilbert White (Letter xiii.), however, mentions nearly a hundred under the 

 thatch of an oatrick ; see also H. Laver, Field, 14th April 1883, 499. The mice 

 probably retire from the upper towards the lower parts as the dismantling of the rick 

 progresses. 



' H. Laver, op. cit. ; G. T. Rope, Zoologist, 1884, 56, but whether it breeds in 

 stacks or barns, as thought to do by Bell (ed, ii., 287), is uncertain. 



