SOME OBSERVATIONS OX BKITISH MICE. 343 



sagacity. It soon becomes wary of traps, and after a short 

 rim of success the most tempting bait will fail to entice 

 to destruction, and the trap must be laid aside until a new 

 generation shall have arisen, when a few more may be 

 caught ; the rest taking warning will shun the danger, and 

 the trap once more becomes useless. 



I have read in a book of anecdotes the fact that mice 

 have the cunning to sham dead when suddenly surprised 

 and escape is impossible. An instance of this supposed 

 cunning came under my notice ; the occasion was as follows. 

 I entered an • outhouse suddenly one evening with a candle 

 in my hand, and as I was leaving my attention was attracted 

 by a mouse clinging to the stone wall. I took it up, but 

 it seemed very lethargic and almost unconscious ; as I 

 stroked it, it recovered its activity, and ran up and down 

 my coat-sleeve, and finally sprang to the ground and dis- 

 appeared. It had all the appearance of a paralysis of the 

 whole system produced by fright. 



My experience goes to show that there is- a great pre- 

 ponderance of males over those of the gentler sex. I once 

 caught twenty-eight mice in a trap, and found to my sui'prise 

 that they were all males. It may of course be urged that 

 the superior feminine intelligence avoided the snare which 

 deceived the obtuse male understanding ; but the fact re- 

 mains. We must therefore suppose great difficulty in 

 obtaining mates, and this should make us incline to leniency, 

 when our slumbers are broken by^ scuffling and squeaking 

 in the walls ; let us remember that unless a mouse is pre- 

 pared to fight valiantly he must remain a bachelor. " Faint 

 heart never won fair lady," is pre-eminently true in mouse 

 society. 



The size of the adult house-mouse is larger than is com- 

 monly supposed ; it is only the young ones that are caught 



