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ON THE ARBOREAL HABITS OF FIELD MICE.
By MILLER CHRISTY. F.LS.
[Read 25th January 1919.]
FEW naturalists appear to realise adequately the extreme
ease and skill shown by these small rodents in climbing
trees and bushes, or the frequency with which they climb,.
or the fact that in autumn they obtain a large proportion of
their food by practising their arboreal habits. These remarks
apply chiefly, I believe, to the Bank Vole (Evotomys glareolus)
and to the. Long-tailed Field Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus). The
latter, in climbing, is assisted undoubtedly by its long semi-
prehensile tail: but the former, which has a very short tail
only, seems to be able to climb little, if any, less easily. Both 
species occur here at Chignal St. James, and the latter is very
abundant in a wood adjoining to my house. Of late I have been
making observations on them and their scansorial habits, with
results here set forth.
Everyone must have noticed, in the hedges, in autumn,
the number of old nests of small birds filled with a quantity of
remnants of wild berries. These nests and their contents have
been studied by several good observers, particularly by Messrs..
Oldham,1 Coward,2 and Adams,3 who have found (as I myself
have done also) that the remnants left in the nests are usually
those of the "hips" of the wild rose (Rosa canina), though the
berries of the hawthorn, the blackthorn, the holly, and other
trees have been identified also. There can be no reasonable
doubt that the berries have been gathered, and carried into the
nest, and there eaten, by mice; and it seems likely that this 
work is usually that of the Vole. This species is commoner,
as a rule, in the bottoms of hedges, in ditches, and among grass
than the Field Mouse, which is found more often in woods and
thickets. Yet, hitherto, the Field Mouse has been generally
credited with the work, and there can be no doubt that he
takes a part, though probably a small one. This habit of
his was observed as long ago as 1834, when Mary Howitt noticed 
it in a. very neat little poem addressed to the "Wood Mouse,"
another and highly-appropriate name by which the Long-tailed.
1 Zoologist. 1899. p. 27.
2 id., 1901, p. 221.
3 See Millais' Mammals, ii., p. 193 (1905).