f
"Deer-mouse." It is noted for drumming with one foot as a call to its
mate, and for uttering a succession of squeaks and trills that serve it
as a song.

Sometimes its nest is underground; and sometimes in a tree, whence the
name Tree-mouse. It breeds several times in a year and does not
hibernate, so is compelled to lay up stores of food for winter use. To
help it in doing this it has a very convenient pair of capacious
pockets, one in each cheek, opening into the mouth.

THE JUMPING MOUSE

He glides around the fire much as the others do, but at the approach of
danger, he simply fires himself out of a catapult, afar into the night.
Eight or ten feet he can cover in one of these bounds and he can, and
does, repeat them as often as necessary. How he avoids knocking out his
own brains in his travels I have not been able to understand.

This is the New World counterpart of the Jerboa, so familiar in our
school books as a sort of diminutive but glorified kangaroo that
frequents the great Pyramids. It is so like a Jerboa in build and
behaviour that I was greatly surprised and gratified to find my
scientist friends quite willing that I should style it the American
representative of the African group.

[Illustration]

The country folk in the East will tell you that there are "seven
sleepers" in our woods, and enumerate them thus: the Bear, the Coon, the
Skunk, the Woodchuck, the Chipmunk, the Bat, and the Jumping Mouse. All
are good examples, but the longest, soundest sleeper of the whole
somnolent brotherhood is the Jumping Mouse. Weeks before summer is ended
it has prepared a warm nest deep underground, beyond the reach of cold
or rain, and before the early frost has nipped the aster, the Jumping
Mouse and his wife curl up with their long tails around themselves like
cords on a spool, and sleep the deadest kind of a dead sleep, unbroken
by even a snore, until summer is again in the land, and frost and snow
unknown. This means at least seven months on the Yellowstone.

[Illustration]

Since the creature is chiefly nocturnal, the traveller is not likely to
see it, excepting late at night when venturesome individuals often come
creeping about the campfire, looking for scraps or crumbs; or sometimes
other reckless youngsters of the race, going forth to seek their
fortunes, are found drowned in the tanks or wells about the hotels.

[Illustration: XXXIV. The Coney or Calling Hare
_Photo by W. E. Carlin_]

[Illust