FANCY MICE 
It is difficult to believe 
that the Golden, Brown, 
and Black and Spotted 
fancy mice were really de- 
scended from our little gray 
house mouse, but this is a 
fact which has been dis- 
covered by scientists. It seems that the hairs in the 
fur of the house mouse contains black, chocolate and 
yellow pigments, arranged so that the base of the hair 
is black, the tip is yellow, while between it is barred 
with chocolate brown. Mice are likely to give birth 
now and then to pink-eyed, pure-white albino off- 
spring; these have been selected and bred until a race 
of albinos has been established, and thus we get our 
white mice as pets. By breeding these albinos with 
the house mice the colors in the coat of the latter 
have been separated, and some disappear altogether, 
and thus our fancy mice have been developed. 
The Golden Agouti has the same arrangement of 
pigment in the hairs as the house mouse, except that 
the yellow tips have been exaggerated so that this 
mouse is golden in color. The Sable is like the 
Agouti, except that its back is dark, and it is golden 
yellow underneath and at the sides. The Cinnamon 
has only the yellow and the chocolate pigments in the 
hair, the black being left out, while the Black has 
chocolate and black pigments, but no yellow, and the 
Fawn has yellow and black with the brown left out. 
The Red and Yellow varieties carry only the yellow 
pigment. The Chocolate carries only the brown 
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