“The field-mouse is a little larger than the ordinary mouse. Its coat, which closely resembles that of the Norway rat, is reddish brown above and white underneath. Its eyes are large and prominent, its ears nearly black, and its feet white. Its tail, which is very long, like that of the common mouse, is thinly covered with hair and is black toward the end. The field-mouse frequents woods, hedges, fields, and gardens. It cuts down the stalks of grain to get at the ears, of which it nibbles a few kernels and wastefully scatters the rest. In its quest for food it unearths newly planted seeds, takes a taste of the young shoots that have just come up, gnaws the bark of shrubs, and feasts on growing vegetables. Its ravages are all the more serious because it lays up provisions against a time of need. In storage chambers more than a foot underground, beneath some tree trunk or rock, it collects grain, hazelnuts, acorns, almonds, and chestnuts, often going a considerable distance to get them. One such store-room is not enough; it must have several, for it has a way of foolishly forgetting where its treasure is buried. In winter the field-mouse ventures to approach our houses and makes its way into our cellars where fruit and vegetables are kept, or it establishes itself in great numbers in our granaries. “The dwarf rat or harvest-mouse is the smallest 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 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.”