572 MURID^— MICROMYS 



Although some observers have found difificuhy in inducing 

 Harvest Mice to breed ^ or to rear their young ^ in captivity, 

 others have met with more success. Mr SouthwelP records 

 two produced in captivity, but gives no details; de 1' Isle's* 

 captives bred twice; those kept by Mr Harting* bred and 

 reared their young, and the latter became very tame. 



Although they do not become as tame as Field Mice, a 

 colony of Harvest Mice make clean and interesting pets, being 

 easily fed and devoid of unpleasant odour. Dr H. Laver has 

 found them peaceable in winter, but in spring the males fight 

 and devour each other, and the young were always eaten after 

 a few days." Mr English finds a similar peaceable amiability 

 combined with an unpleasant tendency to run amuck, some- 

 times resulting in the slaughter of most of the colony, and thus 

 showing a very different temperament from that of the Field 

 Mouse. Mr Tomes (in Bell, ed. ii.), describes it as gentle and 

 not ready to bite, but requiring exercise, Mr Rope,' on the 

 contrary, says that it bites savagely when handled, hanging on 

 like a bulldog, and moving the jaws about while the teeth are 

 still in the wound — in which it resembles the House Mouse and 

 the Field Mouse. 



The Harvest Mouse appears to live naturally on a mixed 

 diet of seeds and insects. Mr Waters observed it pausing in 

 its labour of nest-building to partake of a head of corn. As in 

 the case of the Field Mouse, the range of dainties accepted in 

 captivity is a wide one. Its insectivorous tastes were accident- 

 ally discovered by Bingley,* who saw his mouse spring at a 

 passing bluebottle ; Bingley caught the fly and made it buzz 

 against the wires of the cage, whereupon "the mouse, though 

 usually shy and timid, immediately came out of her hiding- 

 place, and running to the spot, seized and devoured it." After- 

 wards, fed with insects whenever possible the mouse " always 

 preferred them to every other kind of food " offered. Mr 



' Eliza Brightwen, op. cit, 137. 2 j)^ H. Laver, op. cit. 



' Zoologist, 1871, 2756. * Ann. Set. Nat. ZooL, 1865, 181. 



^ Field, 2nd January 1875 ; Zoologist, 1895, 4^1 ; and in Lydekker, 183. 



" Gurney, Zoologist 1884, 112, prevented this cannibalism by giving the mice a 

 mutton-chop bone ; he observed a large specimen begin to eat a smaller one's ear, 

 the victim quiescent. See also Rope, op. cit., 1884, 57 ; and Eliza Brightwen, Wild 

 Nature Won by Kindness, 1896, 138. 



Op. cit., 1884. 58. 8 British Quadrupeds, 1809, 268. 



