HESPEROMYS LEUCOPUS. 
1 65 
move; fell clown, and expired, without evincing any symptoms ot 
pain.” * 
Linnaeus, in his brief diagnosis of this species, said : “ Dclectatur 
music a.” f 
HESPEROMYS LEUCOPUS (Raf.) LeConte. 
White-footed Mouse ; Deer Mouse ; Field Mouse. 
The White-footed Mouse is common in all parts of the Adiron- 
dacks. In the wild state it feeds upon beechnuts and a variety of 
seeds ; in captivity it is omnivorous. 
Its haunts are various. Some take up their abode in dense ever- 
green forests, others in hardwood groves, and others still in the open 
fields. Many find the way into the hunter’s camp and the log-house 
of the frontiersman ; while in the more cultivated districts they vie 
with the common house mouse in the possession of our homes. Dr. 
Richardson tells us that in the Hudson's Bay Company’s Terri- 
tory, “ no sooner is a fur-post established than this little animal be- 
comes an inmate of the dwelling-houses” (Fauna Boreali Ameri- 
cana, 1829, p. 142). 
It is an excellent climber and I have often found its nest in holes 
in living trees, more than seventy feet (21.33 metres) above the 
ground While on a snow-shoe walk with a friend one bright moon- 
light evening, several winters ago, one of them was observed skip- 
ping lightly over the snow a short distance ahead. We gave chase, 
but the mouse escaped by running up the trunk of a smooth-barked 
beech hard by. My friend, who was not aware of its climbing pro- 
pensities, looked on in amazement while the mouse, with as much 
ease and nimbleness as a squirrel, ascended the tree and disap- 
peared in a knot-hole high among the branches. 
The White-footed Mouse does not hibernate. Except during the 
* The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, Vol. 1 , 1804, pp. 37-38. 
f Systema Naturae, Ed. X, Yol. I, 1758, p. 62. 
