BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 265 
there hung a regular festoon of dry cotton threads. During the 
night the mice, with which the cellar was infested, had methodi- 
cally and completely dragged out from the sockets of the lamps 
each particular strand or fibre of which the wicks were composed 
and had eaten all the oil which was attached to the wicks. The 
animals had evidently pulled up the strands one by one and little 
by little, and had sucked off the oil from the cotton as they went 
along; the result being that the threads were free from oil and 
that they hung around the lamps in festoons the beauty and sym- 
metry of which were little short of the miraculous.* 
Some months later I employed a glazier to set several panes of 
glass in sashes that were standing in the garret of the same build- 
ing, and was not a little surprised to find no putty upon the glass 
when these sashes were brought down from the attic a few weeks 
_ afterward. The glazier assured me that he had faithfully puttied 
the glass and that the putty had pndoubtedly been eaten off by 
mice. I then learned, what I have repeatedly verified by further 
conversation, that painters and glaziers are continually annoyed 
by the depredations-of mice, these animals being very fond of putty 
and apt to feed upon it at inopportune times. Several painters 
have told me, furthermore, that they are unable to check these 
depredations by mixing white-lead or red-lead with the putty, since 
they find that the mice eat the mixed putty apparently without 
harm to themselves. 
In view of the physiological interest of these statements, I de- 
termined to try a few definite experiments upon the consumption 
of putty by mice; but I had hardly begun the enquiry when it 
occurred to me that curiously enough the question of putty-eating 
must have a by no means unimportant bearing upon the health of 
the community wherever water-closets are maintained in houses, at 
least when the closets are fitted in the manner usual in this vicinity. 
For, as it happens, the leaden ‘‘ trap” or water-seal, —+ beneath the 
porcelain-bowl of the water-closet, — which is supposed to prevent 
the foul gases from the sewer or cess-pool from entering our houses, 
is fastened into the iron soil-pipe by means of a ‘* putty-joint.” 
That is to say, the leaden trap is cemented into a flange or socket 
of the iron pipe by means of painter’s-putty, and if perchance this 
* Sir J. G. Wilkinson, in his ‘‘ Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyp- 
tians,”’ London, 1878, 2. 91, note, says: ‘‘In the churches of the Copts, the 
rope of the lamp is sometimes passed through an ostrich egg-shell in order to 
prevent rats coming down and drinking the oil.” 
