[Gutenberg 46849] • Animal Life of the British Isles / A Pocket Guide to the Mammals, Reptiles and Batrachians of Wayside and Woodland

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ...development in certain local races has enabled recent systematists to make five species out of this one. It has large and prominent dark eyes--for it is chiefly of nocturnal habits--and its long oval ears have the inner margin turned inwards at the base. The tail is dark brown above, and whitish below. It is the commonest of the British mammals in country places, but less frequent in Ireland. It is common in Europe as far north as Sweden and Norway. As a rule it constructs its burrows underground or under the roots of trees, and here it stores up great quantities of nuts, haws, grain, and smaller seeds for use in winter, when it becomes inactive, though it does not really hibernate. But if there is a house handy to which it can gain entrance in late autumn, it prefers to become the guest of those whose garden has been a boon to it through the spring and summer. We have had them spend the winter cosily in our rolled-up tennis nets, stowed away in a shed to keep them dry in the off-season; and as potatoes were stored in the same place they consumed a number of these. On several other occasions Wood Mice were detected attempting impudently to enter the dwelling house by the back-door. Once an entire family--mater, pater, and five active youngsters--succeeded in this enterprise; but they left incriminating evidence of their presence, though they were suspected of being ordinary House Mice. Accordingly a break-back trap, baited with cheese, was set one evening, and within half an hour its loud clap proclaimed its effectiveness. This trap appeared to show that the Wood Mouse is a simpleminded, unsuspecting creature, for it was reset with the same uneaten bit of cheese-rind for bait again and again, and no sooner was the trapper's back turned...