THIS MOUSE. 



last was consumed, and are seldom affected beyond risibility 

 when cook exhibits to indignant mamma the mutilated stilton, 

 or the loaf tunnelled as neatly as though the tiny operators 

 had studied under Sir Isambard Brunei. Never mind. The 

 careless rogues (the boys, not the mice) wiU know better somif 

 day. Meantime they retain the mouse cage and triumph. 

 Neither are they without a tolerably sound argument in favour 

 of mouse-keeping. " What satisfaction is it," say they, " to 

 catch a mouse and kill him? That you inflict no punish- 

 ment on him is certain, as the instalit a mouse is a dead mouse 

 there is, as far as he is concerned, no more a blank in mouse- 

 dom than though he had never lived at all. It must be a 

 more sensible thing to get what you can out of them as some 

 return for what they filch. What can they be made to render ? 

 Nothing but amusement. Very well ; a very good thing too : 

 and let us exact of them as much of that commodity as 

 possible." 



There is really no telling the extent of the amusement and 

 instruction that may be gathered irom close observation of the 

 habits and peculiarities of the common little brown mouse. 

 They have been known to emit musical sounds. I myself can 

 bear witness to this, having heard distinctly, and for as long a 

 time as seemed a minute, a low and continuous strain of mouse 

 music. It was in the middle of the night, and in my bed-room. 

 I was lying awake, when, preceded by a scratching of Ktlle 

 paws on the fender, the soft music began. My wife heard it 

 as well as myself. Once we whispered concerning it, but it was 

 not disturbed, but at a second whisper there was an unmusical 

 squeak and a scamper, and the music was at an end. 



I find in an edition of the Bev. J. Gr. Wood's "Natural 

 History" a letter from a clergyman friend of his — the Rev. 

 R. L. Bampfield, of Little Barfield, Essex — giving an account 

 of a singing mouse, or of singing mice, and which in one parti- 

 cular coincides with my experience. 



" In a former residence of mine," says he, " some mice took up 

 their abode behind the wainscot in the kitchen. From motives 

 which few housekeepers would appreciate we allowed them to 

 remain undisturbed : and most merry, cheerful little creatures 

 they were. It seemed to us that a young brood was being 

 carefully educated, but they did not learn all their accomphsh- 

 ments from their parents. In the kitchen hung a good singing 

 canary, and by degrees the chirp of the mice changed into an 

 exa-ot imitation of the canary's song ; at least, it was so with 



