Chapter XIV: 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.

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_.)

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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