Mouse

Mouse, a popular name for many of the smaller species of the sub-family Murinae, of the family Mnridte, to which more than a third of the Rodents belong. The Common Mouse (Mus muscvlus), originally Asiatic, has followed man in his wanderings all round the globe, and is too well known to need description. Besides the Rat (q.v.), two other species are British - the Harvest Mouse (M. minutus), which brings forth and rears its young in a round nest of grass and reeds, and the Wood or Longtailed Field Mouse (M. sylraticus). There are several other sub-families, of which one, the Voles (Arvicolince), has British representatives. [Deer-Mouse, Hydromys, Shrew, Vole.]