214: HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



Mice always make very comfortable nests for their young, gath- 

 ering together great quantities of wool, rags, paper, hair, moss, 

 feathers, and similar substances, and rolling them into a baU-like 

 mass, in the middle of which the young are placed. I have seen 

 many of these nests, and only once have known an exception to 

 the rule, when the mouse had made its nest of empty and broken 

 nutshella The Harvest-mouse, however, surpasses all its conge- 

 ners in the beauty and elegance of its home, which is not only 

 constructed with remarkable neatness, but is suspended above the 

 ground in such a manner as to entitle it to the name of a true 

 pensile nest. Generally it is hung to several stout grass-stems ; 

 sometimes it is fastened to wheat-straws ; and in one case, men- 

 tioned by Gilbert White, it was suspended from the head of a 

 thistle. 



It is a very beautiful structure, being made of very narrow 

 grasses, and woven so carefully as to form a bollow globe, rather 

 larger than a cricket-ball, and very nearly as round. How the 

 little creature contrives to form so complicated an object as a hol- 

 low sphere with thin walls is still a'problem. It is another prob- « 

 lem how the young are placed in it, and another how they are 

 fed. The walls are so thin that an object inside the nest can be 

 easily seen from any part of the exterior ; there is no opening 

 whatever, and when the young are in the nest they are packed so 

 tightly that their bodies press against the wall in every direction. 

 As there is no defined opening, and as the walls are so loosely 

 woven, it is probable that tlie mother is able to push her way be- 

 tween the meshes, and so to arrange or feed her young. 



The position of the nest, which is always at some little height, 

 presupposes a climbing power in the architect. All mice and 

 rats are good climbers, being able to scramble up perpendicular 

 walls, provided that their surfaces be rough, and even to lower 

 themselves head downward by clinging with the curved claws of 

 their hind feet. It is also a noticeable fact that the joint of the 

 hind foot is so loosely articulated that it can be turned nearly 

 half round, and so permits great freedom of movement. The 

 Harvest-mouse is even better constructed for climbing than the 

 ordinary mouse, inasmuch as its long and flexible toes can grasp' 

 the grass-stem as firmly as a monkey's paw holds a bough, and 

 the long, slender tail is also partially prehensile, aiding the animal 

 greatly in sustaining itself, though it is not gifted with the sensi- 

 tive mobility of the same organ in the spider, monkey, or kin- 

 kajou. 



