File:Four feet, wings, and fins (1879) (14781425085).jpg

Identifier: fourfeetwingsfin00mask (find matches)
Title: Four feet, wings, and fins
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Maskell, A. E. Anderson- Mrs
Subjects: Zoology
Publisher: Boston, D. Lothrop and Co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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but let thepoor little captive move one muscle and she is uponhim in a flash. Then she plays with him as if hewere a ball, flinging him from her and then spring-ing upon him, until the little thing is dead withfright, if not from wounds; and then mistress catfeasts upon her prey, carefully washing herselfafter the meal. Poor little mice ! they have moreenemies than almost anything else in nature. Cats,owls, hawks, snakes, weasels, dogs, rats and men arecontinually destroying them; still they continue tomultiply in our houses. They make a nest some-thing as a bird does, and you may often find onefilled with from six to ten little blind, naked, pink-ymice. They get their growth in three months. Of all the mouse-tribe, the little mus mussorius,or harvest-mouse, is the n^ost dainty. A commonmouse will weigh just six times more than this, thesmallest of all quadrupeds. It is a smaller speciesof the common ground or field mouse. It mea-sures little more than two inches, has the softest, 90
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The Harvest Mouse. DOWN BY THE CREEK. downiest, reddish-brown fur on its back, while itsvest and stockings are white. Its eyes are dark.But the most wonderful thing is its mysterious nest.Round as a tiny ball, it is woven in among the stalksof wheat, and how the little mice get in and out, orhow their mamma ever gets to them, often puzzlesone, for the walls on all sides seem intact, and sosolid is it that it may be rolled about upon the tablewithout becoming disarranged. Eight little micefill the nest full, and where the mother finds room isanother mystery ! Some naturalists say that thereis a door just below the middle of the nest, and thatat the mother-mouses pressure against it, it opens,immediately closing after her. Another says thatthe mother gnaws little holes in the sides of thenest just large enough for her hungry little onesto take turns in nursing, and then rearranges thewalls after they are through; but neither may becorrect. I know Pat Ryan could find out, said Frank. Cou

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