Shelter
In contrast to its inland relatives, the Perdido Key beach mouse avoids humans, buildings and trash, instead preferring to meander among the dunes near its burrow. Mouse burrows are usually located in the dunes at the base of a shrub, clump of grass or near some vegetated cover. The burrow itself consists of an entrance, a nest cavity, and an escape tube which is closed off but near the surface of the sand. If an intruder, such as a snake or crab, enters a beach mouse burrow, mice make a hasty retreat out the escape tube.
Read more about this topic: Perdido Key Beach Mouse
Famous quotes containing the word shelter:
“A stranger came one night to Yussouf’s tent,
Saying, “Behold one outcast and in dread,
Against whose life the bow of power is bent,
Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head;
I come to thee for shelter and for food,
To Yussouf, called through all our tribes ‘he Good.’ “
“This tent is mine,” said Yussouf, “but no more
Than it is God’s; come in, and be at peace;”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal things—but not so dismal as the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and sleepers are by thousands; a houseless rejected creature.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“The more we shelter children from every disappointment, the more devastating future disappointments will be.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)