THE FIELD-MOUSE (_Apodemus sylvaticus_)
TO A FIELD-MOUSE
ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 1785.
Wee, sleekit, cowrin’, tim’rous beastie,
Oh, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou needna start awa’ sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion
Which maks thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
An’ fellow mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request;
I’ll get a blessin’ wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss ’t!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin’!
An’ naething now to big a new ane
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s win’s ensuin’,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin’ fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till, crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hauld,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain
For promis’d joy.
Still thou art blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only touches thee:
But, och! I backward cast my ee
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear.
(BURNS.)
Another member of the _MURIDAE_, the field-mouse (_Apodemus
sylvaticus_), is almost as great a nuisance in the trenches as the rat.
The field-mouse is very like the house-mouse, with some of its features
seen under a lens. The hind feet and ears and eyes are larger than
are those of the house-mouse. Perhaps its much longer hind legs help
most easily to differentiate the two species. The tail is of about
the same length as the body and head added together, and is annulated,
presenting some 150 rings. The hands have five-palmar pads, and the
feet six pads. There are six mammae in the female, the anterior pair
being pectoral.
The general colour of the dorsal surface is described as wood-brown,
which pales at the front end and towards the shoulders and flanks,
and grows to a more reddish tinge at the posterior end. The whole
of the lower surface is of dull, white, silvery colour, and on some
well-developed specimens there is a spot of buff, or orange, on the
throat, which sometimes lengthens out to form a collar. Moulting seems
to be rare—at any rate but a few cases have been recorded.
The field-mouse occurs all over Europe, and extends into parts of Asia.
It is found all the way from Iceland, southward to Algiers, and from
Ireland to India. In the Himalayas it has been taken at a height of
11,500 feet, and in the mountains of Europe it frequently occurs at a
height of 7000 feet. It is certainly the most universally distributed
of European animals, and the number of individual specimens probably
far exceeds that of any other mammal which occurs in its district.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.—The field-mouse (_Apodemus sylvaticus_). (From
Barrett Hamilton.)]
The field-mouse does not hibernate like the dor-mouse, but is active
and hardy at all seasons of the year. Although, like other _MURIDAE_,
it is probably vegetarian by ancestry, it is, in effect, quite
omnivorous. It causes considerable loss in cornfields and gardens,
especially to early-sown peas; it eagerly eats dandelions and any
kind of grain or nut, or berry, or fruit, or bulb, or bud. Even fungi
have been found in their winter stores; and one family was discovered
which had eaten considerable quantities of putty with apparently no
deleterious effect. Their fondness for bulbs is a great nuisance to the
Dutch tulip-merchants. As many as 300 have been trapped in a fortnight
in a single crocus-bed. They are also a nuisance to bee-keepers,
inasmuch as they enter the hive and eat the honeycomb, especially
during the winter. Whilst feeding in the hedgerows, or undergrowth,
they frequently establish themselves in birds’ nests, and occasionally
such nests become their permanent home.
In the hedge-sparrow’s nest he sits,
When the summer brood is fled,
And picks the berries from the bough
Of the hawthorn overhead.
(_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.
(POPE, _The Wife of Bath_.)
[Illustration: FIG. 49.—Diagram of burrow of field-mouse.]
The field-mouse is prolific, the female producing several litters
throughout the greater part of the year. The mother carries the
young-born litter about for two or three weeks, nipping the skin of her
offspring at the side, half-way between the fore and hind legs. The
average number of young born at one time is probably somewhere about
five, though litters of nine are by no means unknown. All predaceous
animals naturally eat field-mice, and they are the favourite food—at
any rate, in some localities—of owls.
INDEX
Agramonte, Dr., 105
Albertus Magnus, 135
Allen, H. Warner, 151
_Anobium paniceum_ (biscuit-‘weevil’), 111, 112
_A. striatum_, 111
_Apodemus sylvaticus_ (field-mouse), 153, 154
_Anopheles maculipennis_, 42, 65, 106;
head of, 49;
distribution of, 51;
hibernation of, 54;
breeding habits of, 55-6;
sensibility to light, 59;
and colour, 60-3, 110;
extermination of, 63;
buzzing of, 73-4;
eggs of, 78;
larva, 86
Austen, 55
_Bacillus lactis aerogenes_, _B. cloacae_, 23
Bell, 135
Bellesme, Jousset de, 72
Biscuit-‘weevil,’ 111-13
Blandford, Dr., 135, 140
_Blattodea_, 4
Bombay Plague Commission, 137, 145
Bot- or warble-fly, 25, 27;
effect on cattle, 40;
cure for, 41
_British Medical Journal_, 24, 63
Browne, Sir Samuel James, 27
Cambon, 59
Canada, 31, 32
Carpenter, Prof. G. H., 36
Carroll, Dr., 105
_Ceratopogon_, 42
_Challenger_, H.M.S., 16
_Churchill’s Voyages_, 142 _n._
Cropper, J., 63
Cockroaches (Periplaneta), 1, 3;
food of, 8, 11, 13, 17
_Culex_, 42, 50, 51, 55, 58, 79, 88, 90, 106-7
Duncan, P. M., 21 _n._
Dusaussois, 148
_Ectobia_, 4
Elephantiasis, 47
Entomology, Washington Bureau of, 114, 118
_Ephestia cautella_, 114, 115, 117, 121
_E. kühniella_, 115, 116, 117
Field-mouse, 154-9
Fig-moth, 114;
ravages of, 117-22;
prevention of infection by, 123
_Filaria_, 47
_Filaria rhytipleurites_, 21
_Filaria labiato-papillosa_, 131
Finlay (of Havana), 104
Finsch, 53
Gardiner, J. Stanley, 73
Gesner, 136
Gleichen-Russworm, von, 73
Grassi, 54, 55, 68, 77, 78, 79, 84
Gray, 58
Hadwen, Dr., 31, 32
_Halobates_, 2
Helm, 135
Hewitt, T. R., 36
Hindle, Mr., 131
Howard, 58, 71, 74, 77, 94
_Hypoderma_, 25, 28
_Hypoderma bovis_, 31, 32;
eggs of, 34
_Hypoderma lineatum_, 31, 32;
eggs of, 34, 38
Imms, Mr., 31
Infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis), 132
Irish Department of Agriculture, 36
Ismailia, 98
Jenyns, 136, 141
Johnston (of Baltimore), 65, 66, 67
Joly, 74
Kerschbaumer, 57
Lantz, Dr., 147 _n._
Larva, of bot-flies, 28, 35;
of mosquitos, 80-5, 90, 91, 97;
of yellow-fever mosquito, 107;
of stable-fly, 130
Latter, 4
Lazear, Dr., 105
Lefroy, Prof., 63
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, 55
Lyddeker, 146
Malaria, 48, 104;
prevention of, 98
Maxim, Sir Hiram, 75
Mayer, 67
Miall and Denny, 5
_Microlepidoptera_, 116 _n._
Morrell, Dr. C. Conyers, 21, 23
Moseley, Prof., 16
Mosquitos, biting apparatus, 43;
wings, 50;
hibernation of female, 54;
food of, 64-7;
experiments with, 60-3, 67-8;
how to avoid, 63-4;
auditory organs of, 65;
buzzing of, 68-74;
eggs of, 76
Moufet, 3
_Muridae_, 154, 156
_Mus_ or _Epimys_, 135
_Mus rattus_ or _Epimys rattus_, 135 _n._, 136, 139, 144, 145
_M. decumanus_ or _Norvegicus_, 135 _n._, 137, 140, 141, 142, 145
_M. alexandrinus_, 140
_Musca domestica_, 125, 126
Neumann, R. O. and O., 109
Nuttall, Professor, 47, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 71, 77
Ormerod, Miss, 28, 30
_Oestridae_ (bot-flies), 28
Pennant, 138, 139, 141
Perez, J., 71, 72
_Periplaneta orientalis_, 4, 5, 16
_P. americana_, 4
_P. germanica_, 5, 16
Plague conveyed by rats, 149
Port Swettenham, 98
_Ptinidae_, 111
Pupa of mosquitos, 92-5, 97
_Pyralidae_, 116 _n._
Rats, black, or Old-English, 137;
brown, 141;
ravages of 145-9;
estimated annual damage by, 149;
diseases conveyed by, 149;
destruction of, 150, 152;
in the trenches, 151
Reed, Dr. Walter, 105
Ross, Sir Ronald, 97, 98, 104
Sam Browne belts, 26
_Sigmodon_ (rice-rat), 140
Smyrna, Report of the fig-moth in, 114 _n._
Smyth, E. G., 118
_Sphex_ (or _Chlorion_), 20
_Spirogyra_, 84
Stable-fly, 125;
food of, 128;
diseases conveyed by, 131, 132
_Stegomyia calopus_ or _fasciata_, 101, 105;
domesticated, 108;
bites of, 108, 110
_Stomoxys calcitrans_ (stable-fly), 125;
distribution of, 127;
eggs of, 129;
diseases conveyed by, 131, 132, 133;
extermination of, 133
_Symbius blattarum_, 21
Thayer, Dr., 53
Thomas, Oldfield, 140
_Trichinella spiralis_, 149
_Trypanosoma_, 131
‘Warbled’ hides, 30
Watson, Dr. Malcolm, 98
Weaver, A. de P., 74, 75
Weinland, 73
Whelan, R. G., 37
White, Gilbert, 5
Wilson, Edwin, 69, 73
_Xestobium tessellatum_, 111
Yellow-fever, 101-3;
localities affected by, American commission on, 105
Yellow-fever mosquito, 101, 104;
metamorphosis of, 109
Yersin, 149
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