440 VERTEBRATA. 



agreeable compositions, gives us an amusing description of the Country Mouse, Mus Rusticus, 

 showing his grave hospitality to his friend, the City Mouse, Mus Urbanus, the feast being held 

 in a "poor hole," in the side "I' a rugged mountain. The moral of the story is- somewhat Hora- 

 tian, which is, that in this world of vicissitude it is best to be jolly when we can; a maxim, by 

 the way, quite as wise and quite as virtuous as the rule of some people, deemed the salt of the 

 earth, who think it is best to be always miserable. 



The Common Mouse seems to have been indigenous to Europe, but it was first introduced here 

 by the European emigrants some three centuries ago. It is now distributed over the world, 

 wherever civilization and commerce have extended. It is one of the minutest of quadrupeds, 

 being but about three inches lone;, with a tail a trifle shorter; it is also a soft, gentle, pretty 

 animal. Buffon describes it with equal truth and felicity: "By nature timid, by necessity fami- 

 liar, its fears and its wants are the sole springs of its actions. It never leaves its hiding-place but 

 to seek for food; nor docs it, like the rat, go from one house to another, unless forced to it; nor 

 do,- ii i.\ any means cause so much mischief. When viewed without the absurd disgust and ap- 

 prehension which usually accompany, or are excited by the sight of it, the mouse is a beautiful 

 creature; its skin is sleek and soft, its eyes bright and lively; all its limbs arc formed with exqui- 

 site delicacy, and its motions arc smart and active." 



The fecundity of the mouse is great, and readily accounts for its continued existence, distribu- 

 tion, and increase, despite all the devices of man, and even the employment of other animals, as 

 cats, dogs, and ferrets, for its destruction. Aristotle tells us that he confined a female mouse in 

 a vessel of corn, and not long after he found the number had increased to one hundred and 

 twenty. Mice breed at all seasons, and several times in the year, producing from four to ten at 

 a birth ; even seventeen have been known to be produced. These are born blind and naked ; 

 they are at first little pink transparent things, three of which will go into a lady's thimble, but in 

 fifteen days they are sufficiently advanced to take care of themselves. There are several varie- 

 ties, one of which is white, with red eyes; this is a true albino, and its peculiarities being propa- 

 gated by generation, many of them are bred for pets. Persons who have an instinctive horror of the 

 common brown mouse have often a fancy for these White Mice. The mouse is said to be fond of 

 music, and an instance is related in which one of these creatures, on hearing a man playing on a 

 violin, ran out of its hole, scampered about the floor as if distracted, and after various antics, 

 finally fell down dead. 



We have alluded to the foolish dread which some people seem to have of the mouse. Captain 

 1 Ia.ll tells an anecdote of a tiger which he saw T in a cage at Nagore, which shows that a similar 

 dread is entertained by even that ferocious brute : — "What annoyed him far more than our poking 

 him up with a stick, or tantalizing him with shins of beef or legs of mutton, was introducing a 

 mouse into his cage. No fine lady ever exhibited more terror at the sight of a spider than this 

 magnificent royal tiger betrayed on seeing a mouse. Our mischievous plan was to tie the little 

 animal by a string to the end of a long pole and thrust it close to the tiger's nose. The moment 

 he saw it he leaped to the opposite side, and when the mouse was made to run near him, he jam- 

 med himself into a corner, and stood trembling and roaring in such an ecstasy of fear that we 

 were always obliged to desist from sheer pity to the poor brute. Sometimes we insisted on his 

 passing over the spot where the unconscious little mouse ran backward and forward. For a long 

 time, however, we could not get him to move, till at length, I believe by the help of a squib, we 

 obliged him to start; hut instead of pacing leisurely across his den, or making a detour to avoid 

 the object of his alarm, he generally took a kind of flying leap, so high as nearly to brine; his hack- 

 in contacl with the roof of his cage." It is possible that the observation of some such display OB 

 the part of a lion or tiger may have suggested the ancient fable of the Lion and the Mouse, to 

 which we have already alluded. 



The Common Mouse is in America precisely what it is in Europe. We do not conceive it ne- 

 cessary, therefore, to give it a distinct notice. 



Among the other European species of mouse belonging to this genus is the Long-tailed Field- 

 Mouse, Mus si/lraticus, the Mulot of the French. This is somewhat larger than the common 

 mouse, and also larger than the Short-tailed Field Mouse, the Arvicola arvalis, described at page 430, 



