Females of both species sometimes eat their young when the young die shortly after birth. One female of each species killed three of her four young, and ate their brains and viscera. In one of these cases, the female, of P. maniculatus, also died; the female of P. truei was the same one that adopted the surviving P. maniculatus. The female truei continued to nurse her one remaining young for at least several days after killing three of his litter mates. A reason for this cannibalism might have been that I had fed these mice for several weeks on a mixture of grains low in protein content. Inadequacy of this diet for nursing females may have caused them to become cannibalistic. The feed of all captives was changed to Purina Laboratory Chow after the young were killed.
Females of both species transported their young either by dragging them collectively while the young were attached to mammae, or by carrying them one at a time in the mouth. Since mice of the subgenus Peromyscus have three pairs of nipples, they probably transport only six young collectively. Svihla (1932:13) has stated that both pectoral and inguinal teats are used in transporting young, in contrast to Seton's reputed assertion that only inguinal nipples were used. But Svihla neglected to cite Seton's complete statement. Seton (1920:137) recorded a litter of three as using only the inguinal mammae, but on the following page recorded the use of both inguinal and pectoral mammae by another litter of four. My findings agree with those of Svihla. Nursing females of both species were removed periodically from cages by lifting them by the tail. The young would hang onto the mammae and the female would clutch the young to her with all four feet. Young two weeks old or older crawled behind the mother while nursing.
The method of transporting young in the mouth has been mentioned by Seton (1920:136) and described by Lang (1925) and Hall (1928:256). These authors report that the mother picks the young up in her paws, and places it ventral-side up in her mouth, with her incisors around it. The young are not picked up by the skin on the nape of the neck, as are the juveniles of dogs and cats. I have found that females of both species of Peromyscus carry their young ventral-side up in their mouth while the young are small, and sometimes when the young are older. Generally, when females of P. truei moved young weighing more than 10 grams, the female grasped the young from the dorsal side, across the thorax just posterior to the shoulders, and held them with the incisors more or less around the animal. Perhaps this method was used with older young because of the observed tendency of the larger young to resist being turned over and grasped from the ventral side, and because their increased weight would have made it difficult, if not impossible, for the mother to pick them up with her paws. The young rarely resisted the efforts of the mother to move them by this method; when grasped across the thorax by the mother, the young would remain limp until released. Some females of P. truei would drag almost fully grown young back into the nest in this manner. I have not observed older young of a comparable age to be moved by females of P. maniculatus. The females of P. maniculatus appear to be somewhat less concerned than those of P. truei for the welfare of their young once they are mobile and close to being weaned.
The following listing describes changes in postnatal development of young, of each species, from birth to nine weeks of age.
Changes Owing to Increase in Age
Increase in length of limb bones, changes in proportion of bones in the skull, eruption and degree of wear of teeth, and changes in pelage can be used to ascertain relative age. Different investigators might choose different limits for the three categories young, subadult, and adult. Museum specimens were assigned to one of five age groups listed below mostly on the basis of tooth wear, essentially as described by Hoffmeister (1951:1).
Juvenile: M3 just breaking through bony covering of jaw or showing no wear whatsoever.
Young: M3 worn smooth except for labial cusps, and M1 and M2 showing little or no wear.
Subadult: M3 worn smooth; labial cusp may persist, but is well worn; M1 and M2 having lingual cusps worn, but not smooth; labial cusps showing little wear.
Adult: Lingual cusps worn smooth and labial cusps showing considerable wear; labial cusp of M3 may persist.
Old: Cusps worn smooth; not more than one re-entrant angle per tooth discernible, frequently none.
For live animals examined in the field, criteria based on pelage and breeding condition were used, as follows: