(Sketches of Natural History, 1834.)
They are not above sucking the birds’ eggs, or even devouring the young birds. They will sometimes enter disused tunnels and devour hibernating flies and other insects. Unlike rats, they seldom enter human habitations, and they are quite innocent of the peculiar odour which is so disagreeable in the house-mouse; and unlike the house-mouse and the harvest-mouse they are seldom found in stacks of corn. Their preference for berries explains the fact that they generally haunt woods and hedgerows, and their passion for growing corn accounts for the fact that they swarm in cornfields towards harvest-time.
The field-mouse, however, does not neglect open and barren districts, and is found from the sea-beach to the mountain-tops. It seems to flourish equally well in the flower-beds of the London parks and on the lonely hills of Scotland. Its activities are largely confined to the night-time, which may account for the exceptional size of its eyes. It is described ‘as bounding along in a peculiar zig-zag and erratic manner, remotely resembling the movements of a kangaroo or jerboa.’ Its spoor is very characteristic. The hind feet pressing nearly on the same spot as the fore feet, but less lightly than the latter. From time to time it sits upright, pricking its ears; and obviously its sense of hearing is very acute, for it distinguishes sounds inaudible to the human ear. It is mild in manner, gentle and inoffensive, extremely timid, and most easily trapped. It is to some extent gregarious, as many as fourteen or fifteen sometimes being found in the same burrow.
As Fig. 49 shows, the burrow generally has an entrance which is marked by a little heap of excavated earth. This leads down into the nest where food is often stored.
saepe exiguus mus
Sub terris posuitque domos atque horrea fecit.
(Virgil, Georgics, i. 18 b.)
At the other end of the nest there are generally a couple of bolt-holes separated from one another by an angle of nearly ninety degrees.
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Can never be a mouse of any soul.