EATS AND MICE. 368 



statements was a very simple one. I recorded it in 

 ' Nature ' as follows : — 



It is, I believe, pretty generally supposed that rats and mice 

 use their tails for feeding purposes when the food to be eaten 

 is contained in vessels too narrow to admit the entire body of 

 the animal. I am not aware, however, that the truth of this 

 supposition has ever been actually tested by any trustworthy 

 person, and so think the following simple experiments are worth 

 publishing. Having obtained a couple of tall-shaped preserve 

 bottles with rather short and narrow necks, I filled them to 

 within three inches of the top with red currant jelly which had 

 only half stiffened. I covered the bottles with bladder in the 

 ordinary way, and then stood them in a place infested by rats. 

 Next morning the bladder covering each of the bottles had a 

 small hole gnawed through it, and the level of the jelly was 

 reduced in both bottles to the same extent. Now, as this 

 €xtent corresponded to about the length of a rat's tail if inserted 

 at the hole in the bladder, and as this hole was not much more 

 than just large enough to admit the root of this organ, I do not 

 see that any further evidence is required to prove the manner 

 in which the rats obtained the jelly, viz., by repeatedly intro- 

 ducing their tails into the viscid matter, and as repeatedly 

 licking them clean. However, to put the question beyond 

 doubt, I refilled the bottles to the extent of half an inch above 

 the jelly level left by the rats, and having placed a circle of 

 moist paper upon each of the jelly surfaces, covered the bottles 

 with bladder as before. I now left the bottles in a place where 

 there were no rats or mice, until a good crop of mould had 

 grown upon one of the moistened pieces of paper. The bottle 

 containing this crop of mould I then transferred to the place 

 where the rats were numerous. Next morning the bladder had 

 again been eaten through at one edge, and upon the mould there 

 were numerous and distinct tracings of the rats' tails, resem- 

 bling marks made with the top of a pen-holder. These tracings 

 were evidently caused by the animals sweeping their tails about 

 in a fruitless endeavour to find a hole in the circle of paper 

 which covered the jelly. 



With regard to mice, the Eev. W. North, rector of 

 Ashdown, in Essex, placed a pot of honey in a closet, in 

 which a quantity of plaster rubbish had been left by 

 builders. The mice piled up the plaster in the form of a 

 heap against the sides of the pot, in order to constitute an 



