150 
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time. 
And again, “ Or the fine madrigal-man in rhyme to have 
run him out of the country, like an Irish rat” ( The Staple 
of News, iv. 1). Shakspeare has a similar allusion. Rosalind 
says, “ I never was so berhymed since Pythagoras’ time, 
that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember ” 
(As You Like It, iii. 2, 187). Shakspeare also alludes to 
the popular notion that rats will desert a sinking vessel. 
Prospero describes to Miranda how both he and she were 
turned adrift by his usurping brother, in— 
“ A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg’d, 
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats 
Instinctively had quit it.” ' 
(Tempest , i. 2, 146.) 
Topsell devotes fifty folio pages to the history and 
literature of the “ vulgar little Mouse.” 
Among other pieces of information, he tells us 
that— 
“ the epithets of myce are these: short, small, fearful, peaceable, 
ridiculous, rustik, or country mouse, urbane, or citty mouse, greedy, 
wary, unhappy, harmefull, blacke, obscene, little, whiner, biter, and 
earthly mouse. Mice are sometimes blackish, sometimes white, some¬ 
times yellow, sometimes broune and sometimes ashe colour. There 
are white mice amonge the people of Savoy, and Dolphin in France, 
called alaubroges, which the inhabitants of the country do beleev that 
they feede upon snow. The enemies of mice are many, not onely men, 
which by sundry artificiall devises kill them because of harme, but 
also beasts and wilde foule doe eat their flesh, and live upon them. 
And first of all cats and weasels, do principally hunt to catch mice, 
and have bin therefore by the late writers called murilegi [from mus , 
mouse; and lego, I catch], for their taking of mice. And the nature of 
the weasell is not onely more enclined to hunt after them, then the 
cat, but is more terrible also unto them, for if the braines of a weasell, 
the haire or rennet be sprinkled uppon cheese or any other meate 
whereto mice resort, they not onely forebear to eat thereof, but also 
to come in that place.” 
Batman mentions several kinds of mice: “ The field 
mouse, the farie, with a long snout; the sleeper, that is 
