42 
NATURAL HISTORY 
I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my for- 
mer letter/ a young one and a female with youngs both of 
which I have preserved in brandy. From the colour^ shape, 
size and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that the 
THE HARVKST MOUSE. 
species is nondescript. They are much smaller, and more 
slender, than the Mus domes ticus medius of Ray ; and have 
more of the squirrel or dormouse colour: their belly is 
white ; a straight line along their sides divides the shades 
of their back and belly. They never enter into houses, are 
carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves, abound in 
harvest, and build their nests amidst the straws of the corn 
above the ground, and sometimes in thistles. They breed 
as many as eight at a litter, in a little round nest composed 
of the blades of grass or wheat. 
One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artifi- 
cially plaited, and composed of the blades of wheat, per- 
fectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball, with the 
body of a dirty yellow colour, but with the usual black bars. See Pen- 
nant, " Brit. Zool." 1768, p. 560. It was shot in the adjoining parish of 
Faringdon. — Ed. 
1 Letter X. pp. 35, 36. 
