Parental and Early Instincts. 105 



Some field mice breed on the surface of the 

 ground in ill-constructed nests, and their young 

 are certainly the most helpless things in nature. It 

 is possible that where this dangerous habit exists, 

 the parent has some admirable complex instincts 

 to safeguard her young, in addition to the ordinary 

 instincts of most animals of this kind. This idea 

 was suggested to me by the action of a female 

 mouse which T witnessed by chance. While walk- 

 ing in a field of stubble one day in autumn, near 

 Buenos Ayres, I suddenly heard, issuing from near 

 my feet, a chorus of shrill squealing voices — the 

 familiar excessively sharp little needles of sound 

 emitted by young, blind and naked mice, when 

 they are disturbed or in pain. Looking down, I 

 saw close to my foot a nest of them — there were 

 nine in all, wriggling about and squealing ; for the 

 parent, frightened at my step, had just sprung 

 from them, overturning in her hurry to escape the 

 slight loosely-felted dome of fine grass and thistle- 

 down which had covered them. I saw her running 

 away, but after going six or seven yards she 

 stopped, and, turning partly round so as to watch 

 me, waited in fear and trembling. I remained 

 perfectly motionless — a sure way to allay fear and 

 suspicion in any wild creature, — and in a few 

 moments she returned, but with the utmost caution, 

 frequently pausing to start and tremble, and masking 

 her approach with corn stumps and little inequali- 

 ties in the surface of the ground, until, reaching 

 the nest, she took one of the young in her mouth, 

 and ran rapidly away to a distance of eight or nine 

 yards and concealed it in a tuft of dry grass. 



