These small, arboreal mice are adapted to and occur chiefly in forested areas. Tangles of trees, vines, and brush seem to be a preferred habitat. Specimens have been trapped on dark, wooded slopes where the mice lived in nests in tangles of grapevines; others were taken in an old pasture overgrown with blackberry, wild grape, and a few small trees. Near Bowie, two were taken in a hollow, fallen tree in river bottomlands; near Lufkin, one specimen was trapped in a pile of brush in hammock territory near the edge of the Angelina River bottom. Their nests are constructed of grasses, Spanish moss, or leaves and lined with shredded plant fibers or occasionally feathers; nests vary in size from the small brood nest about the size of a baseball to the large communal nests, as big as 20 × 30 cm, that may house half a dozen or more mice. One such nest housed eight individuals, all males. Usually the nests are placed in trees or bushes a few centimeters to 3 m above the ground; occasionally nests are on the ground under some protective cover such as a log, a stump, or a pile of brush, or they may be in cavities in standing trees.