Characteristics, Origin, and History 7 



available from European sources, I wrote to Professor 

 Mitsukuri of the University of Tokyo, asking him whether 

 any reliable records of the dancer existed in Japan. He 

 replied as follows: "I have tried to find what is known in 

 Japan about the history of the Japanese waltzing mice, but 

 I am sorry to say that the results are wholly negative. I 

 cannot find any account of the origin of this freak, either 

 authentic or fictitious, and, strange as it may seem to you, 

 no study of the mice in a modern sense has been made, so 

 you may consider the literature on the mouse in the Japanese 

 language as absolutely nil." In explanation of this some- 

 what surprising ignorance of the origin of the race in what 

 is commonly supposed to be its native land, Professor Mit- 

 sukuri. adds: "The breeders of the mice have mostly been 

 ignorant men to whom writing is anything but easy." 



In response to similar inquiries, I received the following 

 letter, confirmatory of Professor Mitsukuri's statements, from 

 Doctor S. Hatai of Wistar Institute, Philadelphia: "If I 

 remember rightly the so-called Japanese dancing mouse is 

 usually called by us Nankin-nedzumi (Nankin means any- 

 thing which has been imported from China, and nedzumi 

 means rat- like animal, or in this case mouse) or Chinese 

 mouse. I referred to one of the standard Japanese diction- 

 aries and found the following statement : ' The Nankin- 

 nedzumi is one of the varieties of Mus spiciosus (Hatszuka- 

 nedzumi), and is variously colored. It was imported from 

 China. These mice are kept in cages for the amusement of 

 children, who watch their play.' Mus spiciosus, if I remem- 

 ber correctly, is very much like Mus musculus in color, size, 

 and several other characteristics, if not the same altogether." 



In Swinhoe's list of the mammals of China, which appeared 

 in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 

 1870, Mus musculus L. is mentioned as occurring in houses 



