Wall Rue. Jersey Fern. Marsh Fern.
One day it was so intensely hot that it was impossible to do anything but lie in the shade. The boys had bathed twice, and the deck planks of the yacht were so burning hot that they could with difficulty stand upon them. They sought a shady corner of the paddock, and there underneath a tall hedge and the shade of an oak they lay, and talked, and read. Frank was teasing Dick with a piece of grass, and to escape him, Dick got up and sat on a rail in the hedge which separated them from the next field, which was a corn-field. This quietly gave way, and Dick rolled into the next field, and lay among the corn quite happy and contented. Suddenly he called out—
"Come and look at this nest in the corn-stalks! It can't be a bird's. What is it?"
Frank and Jimmy went through the gap and examined it.
Harvest Mouse and Nest.
"It is the nest of a harvest mouse," said Frank, "and there are half a dozen naked little mice inside."
The harvest mouse is the smallest of British animals. Unlike its relatives, it builds its nest in the stalks of grass or corn at a little distance from the ground. The nest is globular in shape, made of woven grass, and has a small entrance like that of a wren's.