334 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
observed them in the vaults and strong rooms on the ground floor. 
During my absence at Simla in 1880 my quarters were unoccupied, as 
the Public Works Department were giving the building a thorough 
repair. It was then, I suppose, a few of the mice from the ground 
floor were driven upstairs, and, being unmolested by us, as we liked to see 
the little things playing about, they increased to a most uncomfortable 
extent within eight months. I failed to discover their breeding places, 
though I suspect they made much use of a large doll’s-house for the 
purpose, for on taking out the front staircase, under which the bells of 
the establishment were hung, I found a nest of torn paper, and I caught 
two young ones in one of the rooms. Some of them came out every 
night whilst we were at dinner, and paid a visit to a rose-headed parraquet 
(faleornis rosa), mounting up on Polly’s perch, and sitting down to 
supper in the tin receptacles for food at each end. She generally treated 
them with silent contempt, or gave a snappish little peck if they were 
too familiar ; sometimes, when they were too sky-larky, she retreated to 
her ring above, where she swung and looked down at them from a coign 
of vantage. Their agility in running up and down the wires of a cage 
is marvellous. They have also an extraordinary faculty for running up 
a perpendicular board, and the height from which they can jump is 
astounding. One day, in my study, I chased one of these mice on to 
the top of a book-case. Standing on some steps, I was about to put my 
hand over him, when he jumped on to the marble floor and ran off. I 
measured the height, and have since measured it again, 8 feet 93 inches. 
I consider this species the most muscular of all mice of the same size. 
I have had at the same.time in confinement an English mouse (albino), 
a Bengal field mouse, and house mice from Simla of another species, and 
none of them could show equal activity. I use, for the purpose of taming 
mice, a glass fish-globe, out of which none of the other mice could get, 
but I have repeatedly seen specimens of JZ. uxbanus jump clear out of 
the opening at the top. They would look up, gather their hind quarters 
together, and then goin fora high leap. ‘They are much more voracious 
than the Simla or other mice. The allowance of food given would be 
devoured in less than half the time taken by the others, and they are 
more given to gnawing. What sort of mothers they are in freedom I 
know not, but one which produced four young ones in one of my cages 
devoured her offspring before they were a week old. I have two before 
me just now as I write, and they have had a quarrel about the highest 
place on a little grated window. ‘The larger one got the advantage, so 
the other seized hold of her tail, and gave it a good nip. 
Now we come to some doubtful species, doubtful in the sense that 
they should not be separated, but considered as one to be named after- 
wards, according to priority of discovery. Dr. Anderson is at present 
