48 



FANCY MICE. 



-ft- 



Perhaps it may be said that the language and expressions 

 nsed on this subject are too strong ; but no one who had once 

 received a consignment of stock from a breeder who kept his 

 cages uncleaned and fed his mice on the floors, would contest 

 the advantage to be gained from a different mode of pro- 

 cedure. The contrast between the mice procured from such 

 a source — lean, dirty, swarming with tiny fleas, smelling very 

 offensively, and in cages which no amount of attention can 

 purify — and the same mice after a few weeks of rational 

 treatment, is very instructive. A good many, very naturally, 

 die before they can improve ; but those which have strength 

 of constitution sufficient to pull through the various periods 

 passed under the harrow of neglect 

 without becoming scrofulous, soon grow 

 plump and glossy, and — surest sign of a 

 mouse in high health — race about their 

 cages with incessant activity and vigour. 

 Their extraordinary athletic performances, 

 their wild leaps and bounds from one bar 

 to another, and the unerring accuracy with 

 which they can measure their distances, 

 have nothing to do with the subject of this 

 article beyond the value of such agility 

 as a sign of rude health; but it may be 

 interesting to note the means by which 

 the mouse contrives to perform his most 

 thrilling feats, such, for instance, as run- 

 ning upside down along the lower surface 

 of a plank, a performance often repeated in 

 certain cages. The formation of the palms 

 of the hands, or fore-paws, and the soles 

 of the feet, is exceedingly curious, as 

 shown in Fig. 14, representing the sole of 

 the hind-foot, and no doubt was created 

 for the express purpose of enabling the 

 Sole of Mouse's Foot, creature to get about as it does, and seek 

 its food under the most difficult conditions. 

 A common disease, even among well-ke^Dt mice, is scurvy, 

 which appears to be very contagious, or at any rate is certain 

 to occur in different individuals under the same conditions. 

 It will not usually be found in a mousery where the bi-weekly 

 bread-and-milk is made with brown sugar added to it, the 

 probable reason being that Demerara sugar acts as a mild 

 aperient on the mouse. The complaint, though troublesome 

 when once established, is easily curable by means of cooling 

 medicines — such as powdered magnesia, a grain or so of which 

 can be sprinkled on the food of each mouse ; and that panacea 

 for animal evils, grass, which most mice will eat. On the 

 appearance of scurvy in a mousery, the diet should be at once 

 made to include more fruit; and when oranges are in season 



Fig. 14. 



