290 DAYS OUT OF DOORS. 



Since the above was written, I have had my jumping 

 mouse in cozy quarters for sufficient time to have learned 

 a good deal about its other habits, but have not done so. 

 Except upon rare occasions, it has proved undemonstra- 

 tive and uninteresting to a degree. One difficulty in the 

 study of its habits is not readily overcome, that of the 

 creature being active only at night. And yet, while 

 strictly nocturnal, the creature never appears dazed, even 

 when suddenly plunged into the brightest sunlight. The 

 eyes are small and bead-like, and have not the suggestive- 

 ness of weak vision and star-lit nights that do the large 

 blinking eyes of the flying squirrel and white-footed 

 mouse ; and yet the creature is always inactive during the 

 day. Judging solely from certain movements and the re- 

 sult of simple experiment, it is probable, at least, that the 

 creature's other senses are exceedingly acute more so 

 than with the true mice and that this supplies the de- 

 ficiency, if such exist, of weak vision. In more than one 

 sense, I have had to work in the dark, to determine this, 

 if, indeed, it is determined. 



Twice my specimen has been on the alert when I 

 opened the cage to supply food and water, and with 

 astonishing quickness made one desperate leap and van- 

 ished. To recapture it was difficult ; and it was during 

 these two occasions that I learned the quite unsuspected 

 fact that its scansorial ability is sufficient to stand it 

 well in need. If a surface was moderately rough, the 

 fact that it was perpendicular did not bar its progress. 

 Hence, while scrutinizing the carpet, as though looking 

 for a pin, his mouseship was on top of a table, con- 

 templating my senseless search. Nevertheless, I had op- 

 portunities on both occasions to observe its gait upon 

 level surfaces, and found it to be quite the same as that 

 of an ordinary house-mouse. It only leaped when I 

 attempted to place my hand over it. In other words, 



