THE HARVEST MOUSE. 421 



case of some which were born in confinement, and whose parents 

 were captured in a wheat rick in Sussex, that even when almost 

 as large as the old ones they were not nearly so red. Indeed, 

 until the beginning of December tbey resembled a House Mouse 

 in colour. About that time, however, they began to change 

 visibly, the hinder quarters, from the root of the tail upwards, 

 becoming rufous before any other portion of the body. This 

 change of colour in the winter I was not prepared for, as I should 

 rather have expected the change from brown to rufous to have 

 taken place in the spring.* 



The period of gestation is believed to be the same as with the 

 Long-tailed Field Mouse, namely, three weeks, the number of 

 young, which are born blind, varying from five to eight. 



Mr. E. C. Moor, writing from Woodbridge, Suffolk, says : — 

 " During the summer of 1883, especially at harvest-time, several 

 nests of the Harvest Mouse were taken by me, mostly from 

 barley-fields, being placed upon the laid barley. Almost all con- 

 tained young ones, numbering from six to eight; and it was 

 surprising to see how eight fair-sized mice could possibly live in 

 a nest hardly as large as an orange." 



During the summer months the Harvest Mouse lives in the 

 open country, evincing a partiality for the borders of ditches in 

 proximity of corn-lands, building its globular nest amongst the 

 tall rank herbage growing in such situations, or in low bushes 

 close by. Mr. Rope found one in Suffolk, in a low blackthorn 

 bush growing by the side of a ditch, and another in a plant of the 

 common broom.f Prof. Schlegel discovered one amongst the 

 branches of a shrub (Hippophae rhamnoides) on the sand-dunes 

 in Holland, and a second in oak-scrub about a mile from the sea. 

 Other plants observed by him to be selected for nesting in were 

 Rubus fruticosus, Rumex acetosa, and Epilobium, 



The nest is composed of grasses, blades of wheat, or split 

 leaves of the reed, and is suspended among the living plants at a 

 little distance from the ground. It is lined with short pieces of 

 grass split by the little animal's teeth, and thus rendered softer 

 and more available for the purpose. A nest found by Mac- 



* A full account of the habits of these mice as observed in confinement, 

 and the mode of treatment adopted with them, was published in ' The Field ' 

 of Jan. 2nd, 1875. 



t Zool. 1880, p. 57. 





