THE ST KILDA HOUSE MOUSE 66i 



rivals of their parents. Wild House Mice are said by some 

 to be much less easily tamed than Field Mice, but others, as 

 Lataste, state that they are easily tamed with care ; no doubt 

 much depends upon the mouse, the circumstances, and the 

 experimentalist. Adams (MS.) used to breed "white mice," 

 and he thought them " deficient in some way (sight, hearing, 

 like white cats with blue eyes : ") he noted that when they 

 produced a litter of normal grey ones, these were invariably 

 more active and wild, often escaping when being handled, even 

 when quite young. Similar experiences were recorded by 

 Darbishire. 



With regard to longevity, Chalmers Mitchell {Encyc/. Brit., 

 nth ed., 16, 976a) says that the House Mouse may attain 

 an age of five or six years; Oken {op. cit., 716) says that 

 "one can keep them for six years, from which it follows 

 that they live still longer in freedom." We should not have 

 expected such a small rodent to have attained so great an 

 age, but we are aware of no other authoritative statements 

 upon the subject. 



2. THE ST KILDA HOUSE MOUSE. 



MUS MURALIS, Barrett-Hamilton. 



1899. Mus MURALIS, G. E, H. Barrett-Hamilton, Proc. Zool. Soc, London, 8i, pi. ix., 

 fig. 2 ; type of female, No. 8.7.16.1 of British Museum collection, from St Kilda, 

 Miller, Catalogue, 874. 



1905. Mus MUSCULUS MURALIS, J. G. Millais, Mammals of Great Britain, ii., 

 198 ; Trouessart. 



1908. Mus MUSCULUS, H. Winge, Danmarks Pattedyr, 88 (in part). 



Distribution : — Restricted to Hirta, the only inhabited islet of the 

 St Kilda 1 group, whence it is alone known. Here it is very abundant 

 in the houses, but occurs also in the crofts, finding shelter in the walls 

 and "cleits" (Eagle Clarke, Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist, 1914, 127). 



History: — Steele Elliott {Proc. Birmingham Nat. Hist, and Phil. 

 Soc, 1895, 135 ; and Zoologist, 1895, 281) first obtained specimens of 

 this mouse in May 1894 ; he noticed " a slight difference in its coloration 

 from those found with us," but did not describe it further. Barrett- 

 Hamilton (<?/. «V., and Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist., 1899, 31), working with 



' As noted on p. 640 above, it is possible, however, that a representative of this 

 species occurs on North Uist, Hebrides. 



