Harvest Mouse and Nest
“The dwarf rat or harvest-mouse is the smallest [[104]]rodent of France. It is a graceful creature, smaller than the common mouse, and of a yellowish tawny color, which is brighter on the rump than elsewhere; but the belly, breast, and throat are a beautiful white, and the tail and feet a light yellow. The ears, which stand out but very little beyond the fur of the head, are rounded and hairy, and the eyes are prominent. The dwarf rat lives exclusively in grain-fields and feeds on grain. After the harvest it takes refuge in the stacks of grain, especially in oat-stacks, but is never bold enough to enter houses. I am telling you about this pretty little rodent not so much because I begrudge it the few grains of oats [[105]]it steals from us as because I wish to acquaint you with its nest.
“Other rats rear their young either in a hole in a rock or a wall or in a burrow dug for the purpose. The harvest-mouse, however, scorns these stifling quarters; it must have an aërial nest like that built by birds. So it brings together several wheat-stalks as they stand in the field, interlaces them with bits of straw, and builds, half-way up from the ground, a nest as beautifully made as any bird’s. This nest is spherical, interwoven with leaves on the outside and padded with moss on the inside. It has only one little side opening, through which the rain cannot enter. Suspended at the height of several feet on the flexible support of the grain stalks, it swings to and fro with the slightest wind.”
“How, then,” asked Emile, “does the little mouse manage to get in and out of its nest?”
“It climbs up one of the stalks, being so small that this serves it perfectly as a ladder.”
“If I ever come across a harvest-mouse I sha’n’t have the heart to do it any harm. It may go on eating oats in its pretty little nest, for all I care; I sha’n’t try to stop it.”
“Here,” concluded Uncle Paul, “I will end my account of the chief representatives of the rat family in these regions. They are five in number: the black rat, the mouse, the Norway rat, the field-mouse, and the harvest-mouse.” [[106]]