BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 
243 
The mice which haunted my house were not the com¬ 
mon ones, which are said to have been introduced into 
the country, but a wild native kind not found in the vil¬ 
lage. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and it in¬ 
terested him much. When I was building, one of these 
had its nest underneath the house, and before I had laid 
the second floor, and swept out the shavings, would 
come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the 
crums at my feet. It probably had never seen a man 
before; and it soon became quite familiar, and would 
run over my shoes and up my clothes. It could readily 
ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like a 
squirrel, which it resembled in its motions. At length, 
as I leaned with my elbow on the bench one day, it 
ran up my clothes, and along my sleeve, and round and 
round the paper which held my dinner, while I kept the 
latter close, and dodged and played at bo-peep with it; 
and when at last I held still a piece of cheese between 
my thumb and finger, it came and nibbled it, sitting in 
my hand, and afterward cleaned its face and paws, like 
a fly, and walked away. 
A phoebe soon built in my shed, and a robin for pro¬ 
tection in a pine which grew against the house. In 
June the partridge, (Tetrao umbellus,) which is so shy 
a bird, led her brood past my windows, from the woods 
in the rear to the front of my house, clucking and call¬ 
ing to them like a hen, and in all her behavior proving 
herself the hen of the woods. The young suddenly dis¬ 
perse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, as 
if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exact¬ 
ly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a 
traveller has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and 
heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her 
