Read Ebook: Natural History of the Brush Mouse (Peromyscus boylii) in Kansas With Description of a New Subspecies by Long Charles Alan
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OF 38 BRUSH MICE FROM SOUTHEASTERN KANSAS IN WINTER AND SPRING.
The brush mouse can seldom be induced to jump from heights of two feet or more. Rather it tends to scamper downward or to remain in place. It often swings itself over an edge, holding to it by its hind feet, and sometimes to it lightly with its tail, and reduces a short jump by almost the length of its body. Such caution seems to be an adaptation in a mouse that lives as a climber.
Many animals of cavernous habitats have small eyes . Some nocturnal animals have large eyes. The brush mouse has large, protuberant eyes; it lives in the deep crevices and fissures of the cliffs on which it is found, but it is not strictly a cave-dwelling animal. Perhaps large eyes aid the brush mouse in performing activities in the partial darkness of a deep crevice or hole in a cliff. Brush mice experimentally placed in what appeared to be total darkness fed, built houses of cotton, and ran and climbed in the usual manner.
On several occasions the captive brush mice hid surplus seeds and on other occasions hid acorns by burying them and sometimes by placing them in a small jar. The mice never carried the surplus food into their house.
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Prof. E. Raymond Hall and to Mr. J. Knox Jones, Jr., for suggestions and editorial assistance. Prof. R. H. Camin identified the ticks and mites recorded herein. Mr. A. Metcalf, Mrs. C. F. Long, and Mr. D. L. Long helped with the field studies and in other ways.
Literature Cited
BLACK, J. D.
BLAIR, W. F.
BUCK, C. W., TOLMAN, N., and TOLMAN, W.
COCKRUM, E. L.
DALQUEST, W. W.
DOBZHANSKY, T.
DRAKE, J. D.
HALL, E. R.
HAY, O. P.
HIBBARD, C. W.
JACKSON, H. H. T.
OSGOOD, W. H.
RIDGWAY, R.
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