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Oldfield Mouse
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- Length
- 5 inches.
- Description
- Smaller than any of the other white-footed mice. Cinnamon brown above, very sharply contrasting with the pure snowy white of the lower surface.
- Range
- Central and Western Florida, represented in George and elsewhere in Florida by related species and varieties and on the prairies of the upper Mississippi by the closely allied prairie mouse. (See below.)
- Range
- Western Florida (Tampa Bay).
- Range
- Sand hills of northern Georgia.
- Range
- Beaches of East Florida; Palm Beach to Mosquito Inlet.
- Range
- Anastasia Island, Fla.
- Range
- Prairies of Illinois, southern Wisconsin, etc.
These are the smallest and shortest-tailed of our white-footed mice and with the exception of the prairie mouse of the upper Mississippi Valley they are residents of our South Atlantic States. They appear to be more animals of the open ground, as contrasted with the last group, which are essentially inhabitants of woodland.
The Florida oldfield mouse is said by Mr. Bangs to "live in fields and open places and probably before so much of its range was under cultivation was restricted to sandhills and open drier prairies of interior Florida." The allied beach mouse, one of our most beautiful animals, "is confined entirely to the sandy beaches and adjacent sandhills of the east coast of Florida. Its life depends on the sea oats (Uniola) and it is never found where that plant does not grow. It is very abundant in favourable places and its presence can always be detected by the little footprints which show distinctly in the white sand around the tufts of sea oats." (Bangs.)
The dark-coloured Northern representative of this group, the prairie mouse, is quite as much an inhabitant of the open, and bears the same relationship to the common white-footed mouse of this region as does the prairie field mouse to the common field mouse.
Mr. Kennicott states that the prairie mouse in the open prairie makes burrows in the ground at the extremities of which the nest is situated; but in cultivated districts often frequents corn shocks and nests therein.
Related Species and Varieties of the Oldfield Mouse
1. Oldfield Mouse. Peromyscuks subgriseus (Chapman). Description and range as above.
2. Rhoads' Oldfield Mouse. P. subgriseus rhoadsi Bangs. Yellower than the above.
3. Georgia Oldfield Mouse. P. subgriseus baliolus Bangs. Much darker, with a decided dark dorsal stripe, tail nearly black.
4. Beach Mouse. P. niveiventris (Chapman). Beautiful pale yellowish gray, rather brighter on the rump. Below snow white, hairs pure white to the roots.
5. Island Beach Mouse. P. phasma Bangs. Paler even than the last, cheeks and nose white.
6. Prairie Mouse. P. michiganensis (Aud. and Bach). Dark-fawn colour, with very dark-blackish dorsal stripe, white beneath. Young, uniform, plumbeous, Ears rather small.