NATURAL HISTORY. 105 



Musciilus (Lat. a little mouse,} the Mouse. 



The COMMON MOUSE is so well known, that a description of 

 its form and size is useless. It almost rivals the rat in its 

 attacks upon our provisions, and is quite as difficult to extir- 

 pate. It makes a kind of nest, where it brings up its young 1 . 

 When a board of long standing is taken up in a room, it is not 

 uncommon to find under it a mouse's nest, composed of rags, 

 string, paper, shavings, and everything that the ingenious little 

 architect can scrape together. It is a round mass, locking 

 something like a rag ball very loosely made. "When opened, 

 seven or eight little mice will probably be found in the interior 

 little pink, transparent creatures, three of which could go into 

 a lady's thimble, sprawling about in a most unmeaning manner, 

 apparently greatly distressed at the sudden cold caused by the 

 opening of their nest. 



The Mouse is said to be greatly susceptible of music. An 

 anecdote is related of a gentleman who was playing a violin 

 seeing a mouse run along on the floor and jump about as if 

 distracted. He continued the strain, and after some time the 

 mouse, apparently exhausted with its exertions, dropped dead 

 on the floor. An instance occurred to myself veiy recently, 

 similar in all respects but that of the death of the little animal, 

 which only scampered back to its hole when the music ceased. 

 We afterwards found that it was a partially tamed one which 

 had escaped. 



Every one has heard of the fable of the Lion and the Mouse, 

 but from the following account from Basil Hall's Fragments, 



