


































120 THE WHITE-FOOTED OR DEER MOUSE. 
its young, which, as usually observed, is by the latter ad- 
hering to the teat of the mother, who drags them along in 
her flight from danger. 
In October last I observed a bunch of sticks and twigs in 
a thorn bush, about thirty inches from the ground, about the 
size of one's head and rounded on top, with no appearance 
of ever having been occupied by a bird. When the axe-man 
struck the root of the tree, a White-footed Mouse ( Mus leu- 
copus) rushed from the nest with two of her young family, 
fully half-grown, attached to her. She coursed up and down 
the limbs, and from one limb to another, dragging her heavy 
load after her. Occasionally both would drop down on either 
side of the limb along which she was dragging them. Some- 
times when she would reach a lateral branch, the young 
hanging its whole length below it, she would yank the infant 
with a force truly surprising, which must have been a severe 
test upon the hold of the little one. 
— Two observations interested me particularly: First, the 
young were not adhering to the teat, which has been sup- 
posed to be the universal habit of this mouse, but were ad- 
hering to the outside of the thighs. In this observation I do 
not think I could have been mistaken, as I was struck with 
this peculiarity, and stood within a yard of them, and she 
stopped in plain view several times in apparent doubt as to 
which way to go, and once on a limb about an inch in diam- — 
eter, and with one of the young hanging down on either 
side, which gave me the best possible lindos for an accurate 
observation. The young, though large enough to have fled 
much faster than the mother éould drag them, ‘made no effort 
to assist in the flight, but contented themselves with pas- - 
sively hanging on. Second, the young were of a dull blue 3 
or lead dolis, darker than the common house-mouse, and 
showing no white on the feet, belly or sides, which is always — | 
observable in the adult. $ 
_. My desire to secure them as specimens was overcome by - 
my sympathy for the afflicted mother, and I allowed them to E 


