British Wild Beasts. 197 



from the fault of the mice ? Were not they and the spar- 

 rows firm friends till the former behaved so meanly in that 

 matter of the odd poppy seed, eating the whole of it them- 

 selves instead of fairly dividing it with the mice? Nor 

 should it be remembered as discreditable to the mouse 

 that it is not on good terms with the cat, for the cat be- 

 haved very shabbily towards its little partner about that pot 

 of fat which they had stored away in the church, for joint 

 winter consumption ; for, not content with faithlessly eating 

 all the fat by herself, Grimalkin also ate the mouse for 

 reproaching her. The majority of fables are to the credit 

 of the mouse : its gratitude is conspicuous, its services to 

 princes in trduble momentous ; and did it not, at the risk 

 of its own hfe, release a lion ? Lions are great mouse- 

 eaters. 



But the mouse, apart from man's household and yet more 

 sacred person, that is to say, the field-mouse — for poets con- 

 sider corn-stealing in the country merely an amiable weak- 

 ness as compared with the iniquity of crumb-stealing in the 

 town — receives more sympathetic treatment. They rejoice 

 over ''the pilfering mouse entrapped and caged" in a 

 kitchen, and moralise loftily — 



" When the watchful hungry mouse 

 At midnight prowling round the house, 

 Winds in a corner toasted cheese, 

 Glad the luxurious prey to seize, 

 With whiskers curled, and round black eyes, 

 He meditates his luscious prize, 

 Till caught, trepanned, laments too late 

 The rigorous decrees of fate." — Somerville. 



For the " city mouse, well coated, sleek, and gay, a mouse 

 of high degree" (Cowley), is looked upon as an animal that 

 arrives at great personal comfort, and lives luxuriously, by 

 dishonest practices. ' But the "fieldish" mouse has some- 

 how acquired a character for industrious honesty and 



