STRANGE ANIMALS AND THEIR WAYS. 353 



no house-mouse at all ! It was one of the wood-mice, and 

 among the smallest of the species. It is a female, and 

 fully grown, yet not so large as a domestic mouse. Every 

 pains was taken to secure the comfort and Avell-being of my 

 little guest. 



3. And what an ample reward I reaped ! For a con- 

 siderable time she caroled almost incessantly, except when 

 she slept. Day and night she rollicked in tiny song, her 

 best performances being usually at night. To me it was 

 often a strange delight when, having wrought into the 

 late hours, and the weary brain had become so needful and 

 yet so repellent of sleep, I lay down, and gave myself up 

 to listening to this wee songster, whose little cage I had set 

 on a chair by my bedside. To be sure, it was a low, very 

 low, sweet voice. But there was, with a singular weird- 

 Bess, something so sweetly merry that I would listen on, 

 and on, until I would fall asleep in the lullaby of my wing- 

 less and quadrupedal bob-o'-link. 



4. The cage had a revolving cylinder or wheel, such as 

 tame scpiirrels have. In this it would run for many min- 

 utes at a time, singing at its utmost strength. This re- 

 volving cage, although ample as regards room, was not 

 over three and a half inches long and two and a half inches 

 wide. Although I have now been entertained by these 

 pretty little melodies for a year, yet I would not dare rede- 

 scribe them. She had two especially notable performances. 

 I called these roles — one the wheel-song, because it was usu- 

 ally sung while in the revolving cylinder, and the other the 

 grand role. A remarkable fact in the latter is the scope of 

 the little creature's musical joowers. Her soft, clear voice 

 falls an octave with all the precision possible ; then, at its 

 wind-up, it rises again into a very quick trill on sharp 

 and D. 



5. Though it be at the risk of taxing belief, yet I must 

 in duty record one of Hespie's most remarkable perform- 



