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White-footed Mouse — Part 2
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As I have already hinted at, the winter sleep of the white-footed mouse does not stretch along unbroken from winter until spring. Many of them undoubtedly sleep for periods varying from a few days to several weeks perhaps, though is probable they oftener contend themselves with naps of less duration, wakening two or three times a day to nibble at the nuts and seeds in their granaries, like Esquimaux on the edge of their frozen sea, content with narrow quarters and each other's society so long as they are warm and have enough to eat.
Few of them, however, are so limited for room as are the Esquimaux, whether they winter underground or in hollow trees and logs buried beneath the snow; every woodchuck's burrow forsaken by its original owner and not yet appropriated by some other dweller of the woodland, makes a winter home for several families of wood mice who are all the better pleased if the entrance has become partially closed and blocked up by the trampling feet of cattle, and the slower yet more effective work of frost and rain and melting snow. The rest of the burrow remains open and unobstructed for years, one hundred feet or more of warm, dry subway, with its chamber stuffed with soft grass for the mice to curl up in as they please.
Yet these little, tender, round-bodied, white-footed mice in no way fear the cold; on the bitterest nights of winter when the thickset stars seem close down among the tree-tops, and the frozen wind hisses through the stiff branches and the dry snow is piled high around the stems of the pines, the are still out in the wind in numbers, skipping along the snow from tree to tree.
In the autumn the lindens furnish them with an abundant harvest of little round nuts which they pack away in large quantities among the roots of the trees that bear them. Living on these and their other stores which they are able to pick up from day to day, they generally manage to keep in good condition while the snow and cold weather lasts, but they are tremendous eaters and evidently find it difficult to get enough once their supplies begin to run short; at any rate they get thin and shabby during the spring months before insects and berries begin to get abundant again.
When their nests are beneath logs and woodpile, they are very like those of other mice, simple balls of soft grass lined with feathers and thistledown.
I have never seen the young white-footed mice before they were about half grown, at which time they are of a dull, pale slate colour.
White-footed mice are largely nocturnal in their habits and as a consequence have most to fear from the night hunters, the owls, especially the little saw whet and the screech owl which are forever taking them unaware. I am not sure that I have ever seen one of these mice come out in the sunshine, but in cloudy weather you will once in a while catch a glimpse of one; only the other day I saw one dart into a hollow log as I approached.
White-footed mice, like flying squirrels, are among the most gentle and unsuspicious of living things and though armed with long sharp teeth seldom offer any resistance when captured. I cannot recall ever hearing one squeak as other mice do, but they have a sharp little call of their own and at times a low chattering cry almost like the dim echo of a real squirrel's chatter. In captivity they soon become tame and familiar and are always ready to eat whatever is offered them without hesitation.
Species and Varieties of White-footed Mice
A vast number of species and varieties of these mice occur in the United States, especially in the West. In the East we have besides the red mouse (described further on) three groups differing mainly in Size. The Florida deer mouse (length 8.50 inches) and the oldfield mice (length 5 inches) are treated under separate heads, but the remaining medium-sized species are so closely related to the common white-footed mouse that they may as well be treated together briefly and the foregoing sketch of their habits, although based on numbers 1 and 2 of the following list, applies pretty well to all. There are three distinct species of these mice with several geographic varieties of each as follows:
A. THE COMMON WHITE-FOOTED MICE
Tail shorter than the head and body, without a decided terminals pencil of hairs. Underparts of body white, the gray of the hairs not perceptible unless the pelage is disturbed.
1. White-footed Mouse. Peromyscus leucopus (Rafinesque). Description and range as above.