THE MOUSE. 



muuli as the mouse above, and measures, from nose to rump, 

 four inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail." 



It is useless to attempt to breed harvest mice in a state of 

 bondage ; it has been q,ttempted many times, and with con- 

 siderably more care than any reader of this book will be dis- 

 posed to devote to the matter, and the invariable result has 

 been disappointment. The young are devoured as soon as they 

 are bom. So rarely is this the exception, that there is pre- 

 served in the Museum of the Boyal College of Surgeons the 

 tiny offspring of a tame harvest-mouse, and it is justly re- 

 garded as one of the smallest placental quadrupeds that ever 

 breathed. 



It was for a long time supposed that the harvest-mouse was 

 strictly granivorous in its habits ; this error, however, was 

 abolished many years ago by Mr. Bingley. He says : " One 

 evening, as I was sitting at my writing-desk, and the animal was 

 playing about in the open part of its cage, a large blue-bottle 

 fly happened to buzz against the wires. The little creature, 

 although at twice or thrice her own length from it, sprang 

 along the wires with the greatest agility, and would certainly 

 have seized it, had the space between the wires been sufficiently 

 wide to have admitted her teeth or paws to reach it. I was 

 surprised at this occurrence, as I had been led to believe that 

 the harvest-mouse was merely a granivorous animal. I caught 

 the fly, and made it buzz in my fingers against the wires. The 

 mouse, though usually shy and timid, immediately came out of 

 her hiding-place, and, running to the spot, seized and devoured 

 it. From this time I fed her with insects whenever I could 

 get them, and she always preferred them to every other kind 

 of food I could offer her." 



MOUSE STOBDSS. 



That mice as well as rats will desert a falling house we have 

 the authority of TopseU. " It is very certain," he says, " that 

 mice which live in a house, if they perceive by the age of it it 

 be ready to fall down, or subject to any other ruin, they fore- 

 know it and depart out of it, as may appear by this notable 

 story which happened to a town called HeUice, in Greece, 

 wherein the inhabitants committed this abominable act against 

 their neighbours, the Greeks ; for they slew them and sacrificed 

 them upon their altars ; whereupon followed the ruin of the 

 city, which was permonstrated by this prodigious event. For 

 five days before the destruction thereof, all the mice, weasels, 



