I saw her running away, but after
going six or seven yards she stopped, and, turning partly round so as to
watch me, waited in fear and trembling. I remained perfectly
motionless--a sure way to allay fear and suspicion in any wild
creature,--and in a few moments she returned, but with the utmost
caution, frequently pausing to start and tremble, and masking her
approach with corn stumps and little inequalities in the surface of the
ground, until, reaching the nest, she took one of the young in her
mouth, and ran rapidly away to a distance of eight or nine yards and
concealed it in a tuft of dry grass.
Leaving it, she returned a second time, in the same cautious manner, and
taking another, ran with it to the same spot, and concealed it along
with the first. It was curious that the first young mouse had continued
squealing after being hidden by the mother, for I could hear it
distinctly, the air being very still, but when the second mouse had been
placed with it, the squealing ceased. A third time the old mouse came,
and then instead of going to the same spot, as I had expected, she ran
off in an opposite direction and disappeared among the dry weeds; a
fourth was carried to the same place as the third; and in this way they
were all removed to a distance of some yards from the nest, and placed
in couples, until the last and odd one remained. In due time she came
for it, and ran away with it in a new direction, and was soon out of
sight; and although I waited fully ten minutes, she did not return; nor
could I afterwards find any of the young mice when I looked for them, or
even hear them squeal.
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