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 MAMMALS and are also found in the large woods near Radley. The summer nests are as a rule made in hedges and bushes, while the winter, or sleeping nest, is on the ground among the stems of bushes. Often an old bird's nest is used, the lining being pulled out and very ingeniously inverted. The sleeping nests are lined with moss. In the first warm days of spring the dormice, like the hedgehogs, are more likely to be seen moving in the daytime than at any other period of the year. They are the squirrels of the hedgerows, wonderfully swift and active, and able to leap considerable distances. The young are born at the end of April, and hibernation begins not later than the end of October. 20. Harvest Mouse. Mus minutus, Pallas. Invisible itself, this, the smallest of all our rodents except the water shrew, is known to be fairly common because its nest is found by the reapers in the corn. At Childrey, where the old method of cutting the crops with a ' fagging hook ' and a crooked stick to gather the stems together was employed till recently, the chance of finding the nest of the harvest mouse was always present. Several of these little woven balls have been brought to the writer, but the owner always escaped. There was in no case any hole or door. 21. Wood Mouse, or Long-tailed Field Mouse. Mus sylvaticus, Linn. This mouse is common in all the woodland districts, where it is often seen by day, espe- cially in early spring. 22. House Mouse. Mus musculus, Linn. This little pest tends to decrease, owing to the building of a superior class of cottage, and to the great reduction in the area of corn grown, for the corn-stacks were the main strongholds of mice. 23. Brown Rat. Mus decumanus, Pallas. The rat plague, very general in the eastern counties during the first four years of the cen- tury, did not affect Berkshire. On the con- trary, the decrease of corn cultivation, which formerly drew rats to the downs to feed on grain and live in the stacks, and the pulling down of numbers of old rat-infested barns in which the threshed grain was stored, has greatly reduced their numbers. In the vale, where there is heavy arable land, as for in- stance round Steventon, they still frequent the bean stacks in great numbers. But in North Berkshire the rat-catcher has almost ceased to exist as a local institution. 24. Black Rat. Mus rattus, Linn. The species has not been recorded of late years. 25. Field Vole. Microtus agrestis, Linn. Bell Arvicola agrestis. Far more common in the meadows of the Kennet and Lambourn valleys than in those near the Thames. 26. Bank Vole. Evotomys glaredus, Schreber. Bell Arvicola glaredus. Found everywhere ; perhaps its favourite haunts being in the sides of the railway em- bankments. 27. Water Vole or Water Rat. Microtus amphibius, Linn. Bell Arvicola ampbibius. This interesting creature is common throughout the county, especially by the Thames, the old canals, such as that running up the White Horse Valley, now partly dis- used, and the chalk streams up the Kennet and Lambourn valleys. On the Thames the main summer food of the water rats is the pith of the giant rush. In the evening, if any one sits quietly by a rush bed, he will hear a crisp rending and tearing noise. It is the water rats making their supper off the great rushes. They climb a rush, cut it off, and let the stem fall among the other rushes. They then descend, climb on to the rush, which is as thick as a walking stick, and cut it into lengths. Usually they have a rough platform, like a nest, to which they take the lengths, which they then peel longitudinally and eat the pith. The severed rushes will be noticed in quantities if any one backs a boat in among them. They also cut off the young shoots of willows, which they peel, often sit- ting in the bush while they are so engaged. In winter they partly hibernate. 28. Common Hare. Lepus europtsus, Pallas. Bell Lepus timidus. The downs are ideal places for hares, and these were formerly preserved there in great numbers, especially on the estates of the Earl of Craven, Mr. Wroughton of Woolley, and other large proprietors. At present the only notable hare-grounds on the North Berks Downs are the Lockinge and Woolley estates. The hares live much in the woods just after harvest, but later come out into the open fields, shifting their ground according to the wind. Hare drives are common on the Lock- inge property, and at Woolley, and as many