6o Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



ten feet away, carrying what was evidently a full-grown field mouse in its 

 mouth. All this time the mouse was struggling and squeaking. 



The squirrel dimbed the fence, sat on the top rail, and readjusted the 

 victim with its paws in the way they usually handle apples or large nuts, 

 and at the same time apparently biting the mouse, which squeaked the 

 louder. 



As I watched, the squirrel jumped to the branch of an overhanging 

 tree and ran off out of sight in the maze of treetops, the squeaking of the 

 mouse becoming fainter and fainter and finally lost to my hearing. 



By Mr. Howard H. Cleaves — A living, but at the time dormant, specimen 

 of jumping mouse, Zapus hudsonius Zimmerman. This had been un- 

 earthed from its winter quarters, two feet beneath the surface of the 

 ground, near Huguenot avenue. Huguenot Park, about the middle of 

 March. 



During its period of about a month of captivity it had changed two or 

 three times from a torpid to an active condition and vice versa, by being 

 alternately subjected to warmth and cold. A tall glass jar served as a 

 place of confinement. In the past two or three days this had been in a 

 room where the temperature, between 60° and 70° F., was such as to 

 keep the animal active, and several times it was observed eating bits of 

 noodles and lettuce. Mr. Wm. T. Davis, who had it under observation 

 during this period of wakefulness, noted several things of interest. One 

 of these was the remarkable ability of the mouse to negotiate a perpen- 

 dicular leap against the side of the jar, sometimes reaching a consider- 

 able height, the leap being repeated dozens of times in rapid succession. 

 It was not disturbed by the proximity of human faces only a few inches 

 outside the glass dwelling, and was observed several times, making its toilet 

 under such circumstances, wetting its forepaws and rubbing them vigor- 

 ously over its head and face. 



Howard H. Cleaves. 

 Recorder. 



