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Red Mouse — Part 2
Images coming soon.
Of all mice the ones that dwell high up in the mows of old-style barns, interest me most. They are, perhaps, as little mischievous as any of their kind; and as comfortably situated, except as regards their water supply.
Mice I believe are compelled to drink frequently; and except when violent storms drive rain or snow through the cracks of the building, those living in the hay must evidently go to the trouble of descending to the ground as often as they are thirsty.
Their homes are in the mortises of the timber wherever the oak tenons were badly fitted or have shrunk away, leaving cosy little pockets in the very heart of the beam, dry and warm with a passage of suitable size leading down to them, as if expressly designed to keep a family of mice comfortable and safe.
When hungry they have only to penetrate the hay which is piled high about them, and explore the fragrant labyrinths between the stems of herd-grass and clover for seeds and dried field-strawberries, and the dessicated bodies of crickets and grass-hoppers pitched up with the hay when it was unloaded from the rack the summer before. I have often in mid-winter come across dried strawberries in the hay, which still possessed every bit of their June sweetness; what a feast one of those would make for a foraging mouse in mid-winter!
Then there are the scaffolds of corn fodder, containing hidden treasures in the shape of whole ears overlooked in the husking, any one of which would be enough to support a family of mice for weeks. Beyond a doubt the lives of these mice of the barn are rendered more interesting and worth while, by the simple possibility of discovering some such treasure as this at any moment.
Compare this with the life of those living in the granaries, encompassed on all sides by bins of ripe corn, and with never a change of diet except what is supplied by the capture of stray spiders and bugs.
Sometimes at night the mice of the hay mows descend to the floor and join those which have their holes in the out-of-the-way corners of the barn, in their search for meat scattered about the bins where stock was fed.
Many of them, instead of living in the mortises of the timber, make round nests of grass and shredded corn leaves and husks in the recesses of the hay or in the middle of a bundle of corn fodder.
These, though safe enough at first, are sooner or later sure to be routed out by the farmer, and may well consider themselves fortunate if they are without helpless families at the time.
Being less exposed to the weather and changes of temperature than are creatures living out-of-doors, mice breed at all times and seasons; and almost any time during the winter, the fretful youngsters may be heard squeaking in their nests, resentful perhaps of the discipline brought to bear upon them by their parents. At first they are hardly larger than blue-bottle flies, pink, wrinkled and transparent like shrimps; it is no exaggeration to say that any substance on which they rest may be seen through their diminutive bodies.
Mice are notorious for their versatility in selecting their resting places, empty coffee pots and bottles being often used by them in this manner. Almost anything in fact that has an entrance smaller than the cavity inside.
Once exploring the cellar of an old farmhouse I came across something made of tin, which I was told was an old-fashioned sausage filler. It was bottle-shaped and open at both ends, and into the larger one was thrust a piece of wood which just fitted it. The remaining space was occupied by a mouse's nest of rags and scraps of paper, the funnel-shaped opening serving as an entrance, through which the mother mouse had probably come and gone hundreds of times in ministering to the needs of her family. The nest was abandoned when I found it, but if any one had chanced to pick it up when the little lodgers were at home and attempted to put it to its legitimate use he would very probably have been a good deal surprised at the result.
In most old houses there are mice living in the walls between the wainscoting and the plaster, their runways usually permitting them to go literally all over the house in comparative safety. On stormy winter nights particularly they may be heard scurrying excitedly about from place to place with no apparent cause.
Too often they penetrate to those forbidden parts of the house where food is kept and make themselves decidedly troublesome, until their fate in the guise of pussy, or the trap, overtakes them.
But it is my opinion that in cold weather at least most of them live almost wholly upon insect food, flies, spiders, wasps and the like, that have packed themselves away snugly for the winter in secret crannies between the boards, sometimes hundreds of them closely huddled together.