504 



CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



Mice. — The following singular circumstance happened in the ware- 

 house of the Dublin Custom-house, and as I had it from an eye-witness 

 of the fact, I have no reason to doubt its authenticity. A bag of malt 

 was hung upon the triangle from which the scales were suspended, and 

 having remained some time, on being taken down from that situation, 

 it was discovered that the mice had made this their granary, and many 

 ran out and were killed. They were left dead on the floor, and about 

 four hours afterwards, no one having been in the warehouse during 

 that time, there were but two or three remaining, but several live mice 

 were seen in the room round the dead. The room was again visited in 

 about another hour, when not a mouse dead or alive was to be seen. 

 Much surprise was expressed at the sudden disappearance of the dead 

 mice, when one of the persons present observed, that no doubt they 

 had been buried by their companions. This occasioned a general 

 laugh ; but shortly after, on removing some reams of paper in the same 

 room, which were placed more than six feet from the ground, in the 

 opening between the reams was discovered a perfect cemetery, the dead 

 mice being regularly interred, and covered with small particles of paper 

 like a nest. Others were found in the same manner buried in piles of 

 hides. E. G. Ballard. 



Islington , Sept. 26, 1833. 



The little man op war. — : The marine animal which your cor- 

 respondent, Ruricola, speaks of under the name of the little man of 

 war, is the Medusa hysocella. The circumstance of his finding it in 

 the British seas, and of his describing it as light coloured, would lead 

 me, in the absence of more distinct facts, to refer it to the species 

 hysocella instead of the M. aurita or M. pelagica, these two last being so 

 deeply tinted, that he must have spoken with admiration of their 

 extreme brilliancy of colour had he seen them. 



The Medusa hysocella (I speak from my own experience), is to be 

 found in the northern parts of the Western Ocean, being conveyed 

 there by the impetus of the gulf stream. In the meridian of the 

 Azores this great current is 550 miles wide, but its course being e. 

 and et. s. e., it would not account for the stray visitants found on the 

 coast of Antrim, if it were not that off Newfoundland the stream 

 separates, and running from s. w. to n. e. reaches by this branch the 



