600 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



were shut and placed close together. Everything indicated 

 that the Mouse was perfectly dead, excepting the fact that it 

 was not as rigid as perhaps a dead Mouse would be in the 

 winter. I tied the Mouse and nest in my handkerchief and 

 carried them to Vincennes. Arriving at Dr. Patton's office I 

 untied my treasures, and took out the Mouse and held it for 

 some time in my hand; it still exhibited no sign of life; but at 

 length I thought I saw a very slight movement in one of the 

 hind-legs. Presently there was a very slight movement of the 

 head, yet so feeble that one could hardly be sure it was 

 real. Then there came to be some evidence of breathing, and 

 a slight pressure of my fingers upon the tail near the body was 

 followed by an immediate but feeble movement of one of the 

 hind-legs. At length there were unmistakable evidences that 

 the animal was breathing, but the breathing was a laboured 

 action, and seemingly performed with great difficulty. As the 

 Mouse became warmer the signs of life became more and more 

 marked; and in the course of the same afternoon on which I 

 brought it into the warm room it became perfectly active, and 

 was as ready to jump about as any other member of its species. 

 *'I put this Mouse into a little tin box with holes in the 

 cover and took him with me in my journeyings, taking care to 

 put in the box a portion of an ear of corn and pieces of paper. 

 It ate the corn by gnawing from the outside of the kernel, and 

 it gnawed the paper into bits with which it made a nest. On the 

 fourth day after its capture I gave it water which it seemed to rel- 

 ish. On the 23d of January I took it with me to Elgin, Illinois, 

 nearly three hundred miles further north than the region where 

 I found the specimen. The weather was intensely cold. Tak- 

 ing the Mouse from the box I placed it on a newspaper on a 

 table, and covered it with a large glass bell, lifting the edge of 

 the glass so as to admit a supply of air. Under this glass was 

 placed a good supply of waste cotton. Soon after it was fairly 

 established in its new and more commodious quarters it began 

 to clean every part of its body in the most thorough manner, 

 washing itself very much in the same manner as a cat washes. 

 On coming to the tail it passed that long member, for its whole 



