THE HOUSE MOUSE 655 



very voluble canary, sometimes loud and piercing, and sometimes 

 dying away into the softest of cadences. Mr Coward {in lit.) 

 describes one which he heard in June 191 2 as sounding like a 

 weak-voiced canary ; its notes were sung with great rapidity, 

 almost in a trill, and its compass was thought to embrace half 

 a dozen notes or more, of which the higher ones were decidedly 

 sweet. Mr Sidebotham described one which he heard in an 

 hotel at Mentone in 1877,^ whose song was not unlike that of 

 canaries in many of its trills, but had more variety, some of its 

 lower notes being much more like those of the bullfinch. 

 Moreover it had a sort of double song, an air consisting of 

 loud and full, though low, notes, and a quite subdued accom- 

 paniment ; so striking was this that some, when hearing the 

 mouse for the first time, attributed the song to two singers. 

 A young mouse of normal appearance kept by Prof. Liebe 

 appears to have been the most accomplished vocalist hitherto 

 described ; its voice ranged through two octaves, the notes 

 partly resembling the high tones of the lark, partly the long- 

 drawn, flute-like tones of the nightingale, and partly the deep, 

 liquid trilling of the canary, and it distinguished itself by its 

 beautiful cadences. Although occasionally pleasing or even 

 beautiful, the melody emitted by mice is said to lack any 

 definite or strophic character. The mice have no sense of 

 time, and Mr English says that the effect of a number of them 

 singing in chorus, but out of time, is ludicrous. 



A "singing mouse" may give vent to its song in all sorts 

 of positions and when engaged in all sorts of actions, as when 

 sitting, cleaning itself, climbing or descending, running or 

 eating. In some cases the throat has been observed to vibrate 

 during the song, and the snout has been held in the air, and 

 extended like that of a dog when howling. Mr Romanes found 

 the song to - be evoked by two opposite conditions — when 

 undisturbed, his mice were quiet during the day and began to 

 sing at night, but when alarmed, by handling or otherwise, 

 whether during the day or night, they were sure to sing 

 vigorously ; these two songs of contentment or fear respectively 



' Mr Coward tells us that his father heard a singing mouse in a room of an 

 hotel at Mentone about 1877 ; possibly this was the individual described by 

 Mr Sidebotham. 



