3. Then in came Dora, 'It had a long tail, and was very little, and made no noise at all.'

4. 'It may have been a mouse,' said their mother; 'very likely it was.'

'But mice live indoors, do they not, and eat cheese, and run about in the walls, and make holes?'

5. 'How do you know all this?'

'I have heard them at grandmother's,' said Harry. 'Do they ever live out of doors?'

6. 'A good many do. There is a pretty little thing called a harvest-mouse. It makes a nest like a bird's, and hangs it up on a stalk of wheat.'

7. 'I wish there had been one in our wheat!' said Dora. 'I should like to see the little nest and the baby-mice peeping out. They must be very, very small.'

8. 'Yes, the harvest-mouse is the very smallest four-footed animal we have. Then there is a field-mouse with a long tail, and a field-mouse with a short tail. Mr Short-tail likes to nibble at young trees.'

'Ah, that is not our mouse! He had a long tail.'

9. 'And then there is a wood-mouse.'

'Has he a short tail or long tail?' asked Harry.

'Long. I must tell you about a man who used to go out in the night in wild places to see what birds and beasts were doing when most of us were in bed.

10. 'One of the things he found out was that field-mice could sing!'

'Don't they squeak?'

'Yes; and he often heard them go on for hours making a kind of singing.

11. 'Sometimes they were close by him as he lay on the ground, and he would put out his hand to catch one. But when he opened it again it was full of grass or moss or leaves; and there was no mouse.'

'Did he never catch one?'

'Never.'