of popular speech, are supposed to have brought it to this country. The Black Rat, smaller, and now very rare, is said to have also come from Europe. We have, however, one native rat in this part of the world,—the American Black Rat—differing from the other species, and very rare indeed.
The common Mouse, also, is an emigrant from Europe.
We have very many field-mice, however, belonging to the soil. Among these is the Jumping-Mouse, which builds its nest in trees, and is common through the country. The tiny tracks of the Field-Mice are occasionally seen on the snow in winter.
There is another pretty little animal, called the Deer-Mouse, which, strictly speaking, is not considered a mouse. Its body is only three inches long, while its tail is eight inches. It takes leaps of ten or twelve feet. It is a northern animal, nocturnal, and rarely seen, but not uncommon; they are frequently found in ploughed grass-lands. They feed chiefly on grass and seeds.
Saturday, 27th.—Very fine day; quite a full market-day in the village; many people coming in from the country.
The word store has been declared an Americanism, but it is not always easy to decide what words and terms have actually been coined on this side the Atlantic, so many of those which pass for Yankeeisms being found in the best English writers, like the stage of Sterne, and the pretty considerable of Burke, for instance. Many other words and phrases of this disputed nature were undeniably brought over by the original colonists, and have been merely preserved by their descendants, while our English kinsmen have forgotten them. It is quite possible that the word “store” was first brought into common use when there was but one store-house in every new colony, and all the different wants of
