Thoreau writes in his journal:
I have caught another of those mice of February 16th and secured it entire,—a male. Hind legs the longest, though only the feet, about three quarters of an inch in length, are exposed, without the fur. Of the fore legs a little more is exposed than the hands or perhaps four to five eighths of an inch, clays concealed in tufts of white hair. The upper jaw projects about half an inch beyond the lower. The whole upper parts are brown, except the cars, from the snout to the tip of the tail . . .