*7 4 
MAMMALIA. 
during the night in traps baited with beechnuts and meat. Its 
ordinary gait is a moderately fast trot ; I have never seen it pro- 
ceed in leaps. Still, it runs swiftly for a short distance and its 
quick movements render it difficult of capture. 
The nest of the Red-backed Mouse is usually, in this region, placed 
in a burrow in the earth, though it is sometimes found in a half- 
decayed log, or under the roots of a stump. I have shot females, 
each containing four young, as early as the 3d of April, and as late 
as the 4th of October. I have also taken a female early in June that 
was nursing her second brood. Hence it is clear that several litters 
are produced in a season. 
I he flesh of the Red-backed Mouse is tender and well flavored. 
ARVICOLA RIPARIUS Ord. 
Meadow Mouse ; Field Mouse. 
The Meadow Mouse is common in the cleared lands within and 
around the Adirondack region. It occurs on many of the beaver 
meadows, but is never abundant in the coniferous forests. 
It feeds, in the main, upon the roots of grasses, though in winter it 
sometimes commits great havoc by gnawing the bark of trees. Rich 
meadows and pasture lands constitute its favorite haunts, and are apt 
to be cut up, in all directions, by its deeply-worn runways. It is 
strictly terrestrial, rarely mounting even the log or limb that may lie 
in its path, and is both nocturnal and diurnal. 
It does not hibernate. In the beffinninof of winter, when the 
eround is frozen for some distance below the surface, it abandons its 
o ' 
burrows and lives entirely above ground. Its nests of dry grass then 
lie flat upon the surface, without attempt at concealment, and are 
soon buried in the snow. As winter advances and the snow becomes 
deeper, the Meadow Mice regularly betake themselves to their nests 
for rest. The heat from their bodies soon melts the snow in contact 
with and immediately adjoining the nests, which, from the continued 
