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Prairie Meadow Mouse
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- Length
- 6 inches.
- Description
- Shape much as in the meadow mouse but upper parts grizzly gray, caused by a uniform mixture of grayish white and black hairs over the whole surface. No brown or chestnut tints such as characterize the meadow mouse. Below light gray or ochraceous. The fur is harsher and more bristly than any of the other members of the meadow mouse tribe.
- Range
- Upper Mississippi Valley, southern Wisconsin and Illinois to southern Missouri and west to Kansas.
The grizzly gray color and rather harsh pelage characterize these little animals which are inhabitants of the prairies of the Upper Mississippi Valley. Mr. Kennicott states that they frequent moist localities in summer and drier regions in winter. ``Their winter burrows on the uncultivated prairie are often in old ant hills or if not, the earth thrown out from them forms little hillocks. They are not very deep, seldom over six inches or a foot, but are remarkable for the numerous and complicated chambers and side passages of which they are composed. In one of these chambers considerably enlarged, is placed the nest, formed of fine dry grass.'' The first litter of young is apparently brought forth in this nest but later in the spring the mice construct similar nests on the surface of the ground. The prairie field mouse is not gregarious and when more than one pair are found in the same spot they are attracted by some particular food.
In cultivated fields they frequently establish themselves in corn shocks in the same manner as the common field mouse.