570 MURIDiE— MICROMYS 



though it contained eight " young. The nests are probably 

 put together rapidly, and their precarious situation amongst 

 quickly growing herbage implies frequent change and 

 reconstruction of domicile. Millais suggests that the nests 

 are now more seldom found in standing corn than formerly ; 

 that, since it breeds several times during the season, there are 

 several nests, the first among wild vegetation, another [or two] 

 amongst corn, and a third or fourth amongst corn-ricks.^ 



Mr A. H. Waters enjoyed several opportunities for 

 watching the Harvest Mice at work in a cornfield in Cambridge- 

 shire. From his MS.^ it would appear that the doe gathers 

 the materials for the nest. She sits up at the base of the 

 plants forming the chosen site, and holding a "leaf with her 

 paws while biting the edge with her teeth, she tears off a 

 long strip. Then holding one end of the strip with her teeth, 

 she goes through a variety of movements so rapid that it is 

 impossible to follow them, but the result is a tangle of the 

 whole slender ribbon of leaf. . . . Next, after a run up and 

 down the stems of the wheat or thistle, she proceeds to tug 

 the tangle up to the summit. Sometimes. . . . she pushes 

 it up, or carries it as well as she can in her teeth. Having got 

 it up, she rests it where it will stop supported by the corn- 

 stalks or the branches and leaves of the thistle. . . . Now she 

 splits the leaves of the wheat-stalk much as she did the 

 detached leaf she selected for the foundation of her nest, but 

 this time the strips are only half torn from the leaf These 

 strips she weaves in and out the tangled strip she carried up 

 the stalk. The result is that the half-completed nest is securely 

 fastened to three or four stalks and is free to wave in the wind " 

 without risk. " Individual mice vary in their way of finishing 

 the nest. Some do little more to it except making the bed 

 inside the woven cradle. Others add more strips of leaf, and 

 make a fairly compact structure. Some carry up grass stems 

 and interlace them with the rest, and also take up leaves and 



1 For another description and figure of nest, see Landois, Zool. Garten, 1871, 162 ; 

 he describes neighbouring grass-stalks as being bound to the nest to serve as ladders 

 for the young. 



2 In chapter xx. of an unpublished MS., entitled The W or Id of Animal Thought, 

 by A. H. Waters, B.A. (quoted from an extract found among Barrett-Hamilton's 

 papers ; I have not been able to find out where the MS. itself reposes.— M. A. C. H.). 



