' quite naked and blind ' on 29 September, and had been told of several other nests early in October containing young. I was told of a nest in the hedge of a cottage garden at Cadmore End, which contained quite small young, somewhere about 2O August. The dormouse would therefore seem to share with the gray seal the distinction of being the only British mammals having young but once a year that select the autumn for the event. I found a dormouse's nest near here on 22 September in a hazel bush in a hedge, formed of coarse hedge-side grass, lined with hazel leaves, which were still quite green and fresh. A friend climbing a spruce fir in Sussex to a supposed magpie's nest twenty feet from the ground dislodged from it a dormouse, which ran up and down the smooth upright stem with great ease for some time before we could catch it. In Surrey many years ago I found one dead in a thrush's nest, which had apparently been killed there by one of the birds. In captivity dry toast forms a very suitable stock food.
22. Harvest Mouse. Mus minutus, Pallas.
During the last thirty years or so, many thousands of mice have passed through my hands (as food for sundry British carnivorous animals, hawks, etc.). I have sometimes had 200 live mice, or even perhaps 300, in my possession at one time after a day's thrashing; and considerably larger quantities dead ; be- sides multitudes singly or in small quantities, trapped or otherwise procured under a great variety of circumstances. Never however, out of all these hosts, including several species, have I recognized a harvest mouse, and I can hardly be wrong in concluding that they must be rare, or perhaps very local, in the county. All the harvest mice that I have seen were captive specimens procured in other coun- ties ; for instance, my friend, F. H. Salvin, captured a number at his place in Surrey I think something like a dozen and a half which he presented to the Zoological Society, and my late respected friend, Professor Rolles- ton of Oxford, kept a pair alive for a con- siderable time under a bell glass in his dining room, by which arrangement they could be observed almost to perfection. Several per- sons have assured me that harvest mice are quite common in the county, but on the slightest attempt at cross-examination have proved so vague on the subject, not being sure even whether they have long or short tails, or whether they are larger or smaller than the common house mouse, that their evidence is valueless ; but from a very few persons I have obtained what appears reliable information as to their existence in the county, so hope eventually I may secure specimens. Probably the species has everywhere greatly decreased since machinery was introduced, which reaps corn so much closer to the ground than stubbles were formerly left.
23. Long-tailed Field Mouse. Mus sylvaticus. Linn.
Very plentiful, but its numbers probably fluctuate (as also those of the grass and bank voles) very greatly in any particular locality in different years, or groups of years. It breeds all the year round ; on 16 January 1893, f r instance, we captured in our garden at Great Marlow a litter of seven, probably barely three weeks old. On 28 March 1884 I was given a true albino (pink eyes) which had been found dead that day in the garden of Dropmore Vicarage. There was the slightest possible tinge of colour on part of the back and flanks. It was a female, and its abnormal coloration had judging by its teats proved no obstacle to its rinding a mate and becoming the mother of a family.[1] Mr. F. H. Parrott of Aylesbury has bred this species freely in captivity, and before the young were -born the female was observed more than once to eat her fellow captives. He found a winter nest containing a pair. Having removed a newly born litter from a female in captivity, Mr. Parrott substituted the wild-caught young of the grass mouse (Microtus agrestis), which she took kindly to, and reared.
[Yellow-necked Mouse. Mus flavicollis, Melchior.
Years ago I remember to have been struck with the large size and bright pelage of some long-tailed field mice, procured at different times either in part or wholly in our garden at Great Marlow. These were I now sup- pose of this species (?), first recorded as British by Mr. W. E. de Winton in the Zoologist for 1894, p. 441. One remarkably large and highly coloured specimen I recol- lect skinning (about 1880), and giving away to serve as a doll's antimacassar, mounted on cloth. Certainly however, I have met with no example of this conjectured species since the publication of Mr. de Winton's paper, either in Bucks or elsewhere.]
24. House Mouse. Mus musculus, Linn.
It was perfectly astonishing how many mice blind of one eye, and in a good many
- ↑ Zoologist, 1884, p. 226.
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