ration: XXXV. The Coney barns full of hay stored for winter use
_Photos by E. T. Seton_]

Here is a diagram of a Jumper in the act of living up to its reputation.
And at once one asks what is the reason for this interminable tail. The
answer is, it is the tail to the kite, the feathering to the arrow;
and observation shows that a Jumping Mouse that has lost its tail is
almost helpless to escape from danger. A good naturalist records that
one individual that was de-tailed by a mowing machine, jumped
frantically and far, but had no control of the direction, and just as
often as not went straight up or landed wrong end to, and sometimes on a
second bound was back where it had started from.

It is very safe to say that all unusual developments serve a very vital
purpose in the life of the creature, but we are not always so fortunate
as in this case, to know what that purpose is.

THE CALLING MOUSE

One day fifteen years ago I was sitting on a low bank near Baronett's
Bridge across the Yellowstone, a mile and a half from Yancey's. The bank
was in an open place, remote from cliffs or thick woods; it was high,
dry, and dotted with holes of rather larger than field-mouse size, which
were further peculiar in that most of them went straight down and none
was connected with any visible overland runways.

All of which is secondary to the fact that I was led to the bank by a
peculiar bleating noise like the "weak" of a Calling Hare, but higher
pitched.

As I passed the place the squeakers were left behind me, and so at last
I traced the noise to some creature underground. But what it was I could
not see or determine. I knew only from the size of the hole it must be
as small as a Mouse.

[Illustration]

Not far away from this I drew some tracks I found in the dust, and later
when I showed the drawing, and told the story to a naturalist friend, he
said: "I had the same experience in that country once, and was puzzled
until I found out by keeping a captive that the creature in the bank was
a Grasshopper Mouse or a Calling Mouse, and those in your drawing are
its tracks."

At one time it was considered an extremely rare animal, but now, having
discovered its range, we know it to be quite abundant. In northern New
Mexico I found one species so common in the corn-field that I could
catch two or three every night with a few mousetraps. But it is scarce
on the Yellowstone, and all my attempts to trap it were frustrated by
the