THE SMALLEST AND PRETTIEST OE MICE. 165 



piped up and sang very prettily — it was not squeak- 

 ing, but singing, musically and rhythmically, in a high 

 key, with a thin and wiry but not displeasing quality 

 — something like a weak- voiced canary bird. 



" Listening for some time until I grew sleepy, I 

 placed this eccentric prima donna in an adjoiuing 

 room, at least twenty feet from my bed, the door 

 open between, but even at that distance the singing 

 was loud enough to disturb me, and I had to carry 

 the little creature downstairs before I could get to 

 sleep." 



Every sort of mouse makes nests, but those of 

 the harvest mouse are the only ones not stuffed in 

 holes or burrows, but built in regular bird fashion 

 out in the open air upon plants or shrubs. They 

 would certainly be mistaken by an ordinary observer 

 for birds' nests, and very cleverly built ones at that, 

 for the reeds and grasses of which they are made be- 

 ing carefully prepared, each leaf separated length- 

 wise by the teeth of the little builder into a number 

 of threadlike strips, are skillfully knit together to pro- 

 duce firm elastic structures about the size and much 

 the shape of goose eggs, and suspended at distances 

 varying from a foot and a half to three feet above the 

 ground. 



The nest has no opening, and yet is so completely 

 lined and filled with the softest vegetable materials to 

 be had, that one is confronted with a problem with 

 regard to the presence of from five to nine little mice 

 inside, like that we are told so puzzled King George 

 III about the apples in the dumpling, how they 



