the smallest of British beasties, absolutely the very smallest. Even the
museum men, who look through microscopes, had to admit that.

Then a Liliputian shrewmouse turned up. He was found stretched dead in the
middle of the path, and the time, as any book that deals with shrewmice
would tell you, was the autumn. He was so small that, had he not died in
the path, he would assuredly not have been found at all.

Now, because of his smallness, and because he was found dead in the autumn
(from which you may assume that he was full-grown), he was sent to the
museum men; and the museum men examined his teeth, and rubbed their hands
with glee, for they found that his upper incisors were abnormal.

So they had his poor little body stuffed, and propped him up with wire in
the way they thought he looked nicest, and wrote a brand new ticket for
him--SOREX MINUTUS. The lesser shrew. The _smallest_ British quadruped.

[Illustration: THEN A LILIPUTIAN SHREWMOUSE TURNED UP.]

Thus was one unique distinction stolen from the harvest mouse. But to this
day the harvest mouse shrugs his furry shoulders and says, that there are
plenty of dwarfs with abnormal teeth in his own family, if the museum men
want them.

He can afford to be superior, for he has yet another unique distinction
left, and that is not likely to be taken from him.

Of all the four-footed creatures in Great Britain and Ireland, he, and he
only, has a prehensile tail. The middle of it he can bend through half a
circle, the last half-inch he can wrap completely round a cornstalk. It is
pale chestnut above, and pasty white below. Taken all round, it is the
most marvellous tail in the United Kingdom.

[Illustration: HE, AND HE ONLY, HAS A PREHENSILE TAIL.]

A mass of whipcord muscle, it can be made rigid, or flexible, at will. He
can sit back with his hind feet resting on one stalk, hitch his tail round
another, and lean his full weight against it. His full weight is one-sixth
of an ounce. Were the G.P.O. more friendly to naturalists, a score of him
could travel for a penny; but, even so, his tail is trivial in proportion.

He is so proud of it that he cleans it continually. Other mice clean their
tails at odd times--only when they really seem to need it. The harvest
mouse cleans his tail as a matter of regular toilet routine, and he does
his toilet fifteen times a day. First his whiskers, then his head and
ears, then his body, and finally his tail. He pulls it forward