Parental and Early Instincts. 105 
Some field mice breed on the surface of the 
ground in ill-constructed nests, and their young 
are certainly the most helpless things in nature. It 
is possible that where this dangerous habit exists, 
the parent has some admirable complex instincts 
to safeguard her young, in addition to the ordinary 
instincts of most animals of this kind. This idea 
was suggested to me by the action of a female 
mouse which I witnessed by chance. While walk- 
ing in a field of stubble one day in autumn, near 
Buenos Ayres, I suddenly heard, issuing from near 
my feet, a chorus of shrill squealing voices — the 
familiar excessively sharp little needles of sound 
emitted by young, blind and naked mice, when 
they are disturbed or in pain. Looking down, I 
saw close to my foot a nest of them — there were 
nine in all, wriggling about and squealing ; for the 
parent, frightened at my step, had just sprung 
from them, overturning in her hurry to escape the 
slight loosely-felted dome of fine grass and thistle- 
down which had covered them. I saw her running 
away, but after going six or seven yards she 
stopped, and, turning partly round so as to watch 
me, waited in fear and trembling. I remained 
perfectly motionless — a sure way to allay fear and 
suspicion in any wild creature, — and in a few 
moments she returned, but with the utmost caution, 
frequently pausing to start and tremble, and masking 
her approach with corn stumps and little inequali- 
ties in the surface of the ground, until, reaching 
the nest, she took one of the young in her mouth, 
and ran rapidly away to a distance of eight or nine 
yards and concealed it in a tuft of dry grass. 
