The harvest mouse is the smallest and perhaps the prettiest of all the rodents. Its back is tan color, brightening on the sides and legs, while all the under part of the body is snow-white and silky. It is not much over an inch long, has bright eyes, and a long, hairy tail; it lives upon grain, and constructs one of the prettiest of nests for a home. Laying together, with their long leaves, three or four stalks of wheat, oats, or barley, the harvest mouse weaves of grass and leaves a round, beautiful nest, about as large as that of a titmouse. The nest is shaped like a ball, and has a small opening on one side. In this nest the tiny mother places her little ones. She climbs up the wheat stems by means of her sharp claws, but comes down as one slides down a rope, holding on by one hand. This round nest is the summer home of the harvest-mouse. By the time the grain is ripe, some wise instinct teaches her to remove her household to a new dwelling. She either makes a burrow in the ground, or builds a nest in a corn-crib or hay-rick. Another curious mouse is called the economic mouse, because it lays up grain and seeds for winter use. In this it resembles certain other rodents, as the beaver, which lays up a store of bark, the squirrel, which hoards nuts, and the hamster, which lays up grain, beans, peas, and seeds. Sometimes fifty or a hundred pounds of grain and dried seeds have been taken from the burrows of these animals. The squirrels, and the “pouched,” or earth-rats, are provided with cheek pouches for carrying home their winter store of provisions. Others convey their booty in their mouths. I had at one time a pair of chipmunks, which made their home in the foundation wall of my house. A row of wild cherry trees stood near the lawn, and I found that the chipmunks laid up a large store of the cherry pits, making many journeys daily to and from the trees, and carrying off in their cheek pouches a number of pits each time. The season was dry, and one morning I had poured a pitcher of water over some plants near my porch, when one of the chipmunks passed among them on his way to the cherry trees. He stopped, sat on his haunches, took one of the wet leaves in his hand, pressed the sides together to make a trough for the moisture, and holding it to his mouth drank the water in the most comical fashion possible. He drank from five or six leaves, while I stood watching him. When he went his way, I filled a large saucer with water and placed it near the plants. This was presently discovered, and both my little chipmunks hereafter drank and washed regularly at this dish.