They were curiously expert in walking on their hind feet, holding the body in an upright position and taking short steps. If anything was held just out of reach above their heads, as the point of my finger, they would continue in an erect position for a considerable time. At such times they would reach up with their front paws and often spring up on their hind feet for half an inch above the floor trying to touch it. When eating they sat upright on their haunches, like little marmots, and held the food in their front paws.
THE COMMON FIELD MOUSE, OR MEADOW MOUSE (Microtus pennsylvanicus and its relatives)
(For illustration, [see page 522])
The Pennsylvania meadow mouse is a small species about as long in body as the house mouse, but much more heavily proportioned. Its head is rounded, the eyes small and beadlike, the legs and tail are short, and the comparatively coarse fur is so long that it almost conceals the short, rounded ears.
It is a typical representative of a group of small mammals commonly known as field mice, or “bear mice,” which includes a great number of species closely similar in general appearance, but varying much in size. In England they are termed voles, and large species living about the water in England and northern Europe are known as “water rats.”
Field mice are circumpolar in distribution and abound from the Arctic barrens, beyond the limit of trees, to southern Europe and the Himalayas, in the Old World, and to the southern United States and along high mountains through Mexico and Guatemala, in Central America. They occur in most parts of the United States except in some of the hotter and more arid sections.
As a rule field mice prefer low-lying fertile land, as grassy meadows, but the banks of streams, the rank growths of swamps and marshes, the borders of damp woodlands, the grassy places on Arctic tundras, or the dwarfed vegetation of glacial slopes and valleys above timber-line on high mountains furnish homes for one species or another.
Two, and even three, species of field mice are sometimes found in the same locality, but each kind usually occupies a situation differing in some way from that chosen by the others. Some occupy comparatively dry ground and others, like the European water rat, live in marshes and are almost as aquatic as the muskrat. Most species living about the water are expert in diving and in swimming, even under water. In streams inhabited by large trout they are often caught and eaten by the fish.
The presence of field mice is nearly always indicated by smoothly worn little roads or runways about an inch in width, which form a network among the vegetation in their haunts. These runways lead away from the entrances of their burrows and wind through the vegetation to their feeding grounds. They are kept clean and free from straws and other small obstructions, so that the owners when alarmed may run swiftly to the shelter of their burrows. Fully conscious of their helplessness, meadow mice are as cautious as the necessities of existence will permit.
Their burrows are often in the midst of grassy meadows, as well as under the shelter of logs, rocks, tussocks of grass, or roots of trees, and lead to underground chambers filled with large nests of dry grass, which shelter the owner in winter and often in summer. The summer nests in many places, especially in damp meadows or marshes, are made in little hollows in the surface or in tussocks of grass. In these nests several litters containing from four to eleven young are born each year.