50 



FANCY MICE. 



unless ia a tin to a post-mortem. Either thus, or in a kind 

 of huddled ball, with its head tucked in between its clenched 

 paws, the mouse marked for death will always lie, generally 

 with its nose in a corner of the cage; and remedies are 

 always, and probably always will be, perfectly useless when 

 once the invalid is sufficiently ill to take up this posture. 



A few words of caution in conclusion. It cannot be too 

 strongly impressed upon the novice in mice breeding that 

 the extreme fecundity of these little creatures is a serious 

 drawback to the evolution of good show specimens, if 

 encouraged. The necessity of separating the sexes at latest 

 when they are five or six weeks old is emphasized by the fact 

 that at that age they will, if allowed, often produce young, 

 which, naturally, never attain to any size, while the proper 

 development of the parents is also arrested. It is not un- 

 usual to hear the purchaser of a pair of mice say : "I bought 

 a pair of mice three months ago, and now I have thirty ; what 

 am I to do with them ? " What, indeed ! for they are 

 miserable little undersized things, worthless alike for show or 

 breeding, and only fit to feed snakes. A pair of mice should 

 be at least six months old before their first young are born, 

 and an interval of several weeks should elapse between the 

 removal of one litter from a doe and her beginning to think 

 of another. It will pay the fancier much better in the end 

 to produce half a dozen fine large healthy show mice than to 

 breed half a hundred wasters. 



Fig. 16. The End. 



