Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/318

290 me without fear. I found they drank a considerable quantity of water, and much preferred flies and other insects to grain: thus proving that they are not strictly granivorous animals. There is a peculiar grace and elegance in the attitudes of these little animals, particularly when cleaning themselves, and in climbing about the cage; and in the latter operation I observed that they frequently coiled the end of their tails round a wire, for the purpose of securing their hold. When suddenly startled, they often rested themselves on their hind feet, and raised the body in a listening attitude, and, after taking a survey of surrounding objects, either precipitately retreated to the interior of the cage, or resumed their accustomed attitude, according to the effect the sudden fright had upon them. The nests of these mice I have frequently found, and very neat and compact they are; there is no visible aperture whatever, and it is still a question how the mother contrives to give each of her young the necessary sustenance, as the litter, even when quite young, very nearly fill the whole space in the nest, and after a little time they completely fill it. It was the opinion of White that the parent mouse opened the nest at different parts, and so afforded nourishment to each one of her offspring, taking care to close all safely again. The nests are usually very ingeniously suspended from two or three stalks of corn, and are perfectly round.—L. Pemberton Bartlett; Kingston, near Canterbury, July 28, 1843.

Note on the Habits of the Harvest-mouse in confinement. "About the middle of September, 1804, I had a female harvest-mouse given to me by Mrs. Campbell, of Chewton House, Hants. It had been put into a dormouse cage, immediately when caught, and a few days afterwards produced eight young ones. I entertained some hopes that the little animal would have nursed these, and brought them up; but having been disturbed in her removal, about four miles, from the country, she began to destroy them, and I took them from her. The young ones, at the time I received them (not more than two or three days old) must have been at least equal in weight to the mother.

"After they were removed, she soon became reconciled to her situation, and, when there was no noise, would venture to come out of her hiding-place, at the extremity of the cage, and climb about among the wires of the open part before me. In doing this I remarked that her tail was, in some measure, prehensile; and that, to render her hold the more secure, she generally coiled the extremity of it round one of the wires. The toes of all the feet were particularly long and flexile, and she could grasp the wires very firmly with any of them. She frequently rested on her hind-feet, somewhat in the manner of the jerboa, for the purpose of looking about her; and in this attitude could extend her body, at such an angle as at first greatly surprised me. She was a beautiful little animal, and her various attitudes in cleaning her face, head and body, with her paws, were peculiarly graceful and elegant. For a few days after I received this mouse, I neglected to give it any water; but when I afterwards put some into the cage, she lapped it with great eagerness. After lapping, she always raised herself on her hind feet, and cleaned her head with her paws.

"She continued, even till the time of her death, exceedingly shy and timid; but whenever I put into the cage any favorite food, such as grains of wheat or maize, she would eat them before me. On the 4east noise or motion, however, she immediately ran off, with the grain in her mouth, to her hiding-place.

"One evening, 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, although 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,