What is "harvest mouse"

Harvest \Har"vest\ (h[aum]r"v[e^]st), n. [OE. harvest, hervest, AS. h[ae]rfest autumn; akin to LG. harfst, D. herfst, OHG. herbist, G. herbst, and prob. to L. carpere to pluck, Gr. karpo`s fruit. Cf. Carpet.]

1. The gathering of a crop of any kind; the ingathering of the crops; also, the season of gathering grain and fruits, late summer or early autumn.

   Seedtime and harvest . . . shall not cease.
   --Gen. viii. 2

2. At harvest, when corn is ripe.
   --Tyndale.

   2. That which is reaped or ready to be reaped or gathered; a crop, as of grain (wheat, maize, etc.), or fruit.

   Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.
   --Joel iii. 1

3. To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps.
   --Shak.

   3. The product or result of any exertion or labor; gain; reward.

   The pope's principal harvest was in the jubilee.
   --Fuller.

   The harvest of a quiet eye.
   --Wordsworth.

   Harvest fish (Zo["o]l.), a marine fish of the Southern United States ( Stromateus alepidotus); -- called whiting in Virginia. Also applied to the dollar fish.

   Harvest fly (Zo["o]l.), an hemipterous insect of the genus Cicada, often called locust. See Cicada.

   Harvest lord, the head reaper at a harvest. [Obs.]
   --Tusser.

   Harvest mite (Zo["o]l.), a minute European mite ( Leptus autumnalis), of a bright crimson color, which is troublesome by penetrating the skin of man and domestic animals; -- called also harvest louse, and harvest bug.

   Harvest moon, the moon near the full at the time of harvest in England, or about the autumnal equinox, when, by reason of the small angle that is made by the moon's orbit with the horizon, it rises nearly at the same hour for several days.

   Harvest mouse (Zo["o]l.), a very small European field mouse ( Mus minutus). It builds a globular nest on the stems of wheat and other plants.

   Harvest queen, an image representing Ceres, formerly carried about on the last day of harvest.
   --Milton.

   Harvest spider. (Zo["o]l.) See Daddy longlegs.

n. 1 ''Micromys minutus'', a species of the sub-family Murinae (Old World rats and mouse). 2 A New World mouse of the genus ''Reithrodontomys''.

1. n. any of several small grayish New World mice inhabiting e.g. grain fields [syn: American harvest mouse]

2. small reddish-brown Eurasian mouse inhabiting e.g. cornfields [syn: Micromyx minutus]

Harvest mouse may refer to members of two groups of rodents:

• Micromys from Eurasia, particularly the Eurasian harvest mouse (Micromys minutus)
• Reithrodontomys from the Americas