* 



OR, PLAIN 



TEACHING. 



255 



forth several times in a year, 

 generally having from six to 

 ten at each litter. When first 

 born, mice are naked and help- 

 less, but in about fifteen days 

 are able to shift for themselves. 

 The mouse is capable of being 

 tamed, and exhibits considera- 

 ble attachment to its keeper. 

 As, from their numbers and 

 depredations, they are extreme- 

 ly troublesome, several modes 

 have been devised to destroy 

 them, as cats, traps, poisons, 

 etc. 



The harvest mouse is the 

 smallest of American mammalia. 

 It is a lively, active, playful 

 little creature ; its eyes are 

 dark ; its general colour above 

 is delicate reddish fawn ; the 

 under parts are abruptly white ; 

 the ears are short and rounded ; 

 the tail is rather shorter than 

 the body. Length of head and 

 body, two inches six lines. 



6 



This animal lives entirely in 

 the fields, resorting in the winter 

 to burrows of its own con- 

 struction, or to corn-ricks, into 

 which it penetrates, and there 



finds food and shelter. The 

 asylum in which it rears its 

 young, is an artful and beautiful 

 nest, 6, of a spherical figure, 

 consisting of the split leaves and 

 panicles of grasses artificially 

 interwoven together, and sus- 

 pended among the stalks of 

 standing corn, or thistles, or 

 other plants, to which it is se- 

 cured, and of which the leaves 

 will shroud it from notice. 



According to Dr. Gloger, the 

 entrance to the nest is rather 

 below the middle, on the side 

 opposite to the stems, and is 

 scarcely observable ; the parent 

 closes it when she leaves the 

 nest, and probably while she 

 remains herself within. The in- 

 side is warm, smooth, and neatly 

 rounded. One nest examined 

 by Dr. Gloger contained five 

 young, another nine. 



It would appear that the har- 

 vest mouse is insectivorous as 

 well as granivorous, and this 

 fact was first noticed by the 

 Rev. W. Bingley, who obtained 

 a female, which after its capture 

 produced eight young, but being 

 disturbed by a conveyance of 

 several miles, she killed them, 

 as the rabbit is frequently known 

 to do. " One evening," he ob- 

 serves, " as I was sitting at my 

 writing-desk, and the animal 

 was playing about in the open 

 part of its cage, a large blue fly 

 happened to buzz against the 

 wires ; the little creature, al- 

 though at twice or thrice the 

 distance of her own length from 

 it, sprang along the wires with 

 the greatest agility, and would 

 certainly have seized it had the 



