TOWN MICE AND COUNTRY MICE.
" UNIVERSAL live-stock providers" are advertising two expensive breeds of mice for members of the fancy. These are tortoiseshell mice, a variety of the tame mouse, and Japanese waltzing mice. The latter are gifted with a hereditary tendency to waltz, some being better and some worse performers; but the habit is transmitted in the breed, and if one be taken from the cage it at once begins to turn round in circles, as if running after its own tail, and waltzes progressively round the table.
Our house mice, though seldom such pests as they are in parts of the Tyrol, where they have been known to emerge in scores to demand a share of the evening meal in private rooms in the hotels, are a permanent nuisance in London houses. On the other hand, they are pretty—much more so than the albino tame mice, and more intelligent. The mouse does not look upon itself as an intruder, like the rat. It has a curious desire to be on terms with man. If it were only a useful little scavenger, instead of a form of vermin, it would soon assert for itself a position like that of the mongoose in India. It is never afraid of a solitary man—on the contrary, it will keep him company, desire to share his meals, and when en- couraged come regularly to feed and play. An instance was given recently by a correspondent in the Spectator of one which had learnt to answer to a name,—the same name as that of one of the children of the house,—and was killed by a stranger who thought he was being useful.
There are social distinctions among mice. The old division into country mice and town mice is far from exhaustive. It indicates a difference of habit and habitat, but not of worldly position. Church mice have been long, and justly, considered to be the poorest of any. Their food is mainly dead flies, bran from footstools, and in country districts the remains of corn samples which the farmers show one another at vestry meetings. It is a wonder that they ever succeed in bringing up their fami- lies, which, it may be noted, are usually born in nests made of bits of green or red baize taken from hassocks or pew-linings. The most prosperous—the exact opposite of the ecclesiastical mouse—is the collegiate mouse, which lives on or near the buttery staircase. In the precincts of the kitchen of Christ Church the mice look as fat as ortolans ; and in the lobby outside " Hall " these epicures have been observed to sit and warm themselves by the hot chests holding plates of roast meat, enjoying at once the sense of warmth and that savour of burnt-offering so grateful to Olympian nostrils. These sleek and well-liking buttery mice are quite distinct from the scholar's mouse. The scholar's mouse, like the scholar, lives plainly but well on quiet staircases, and loves late hours, and a lamp, and the company of a studious man with a book. Like the scholar he lives long, and becomes an ornament to his college, and looks forward, no doubt, to the days when the undergraduate whose rooms he shares will become a Fellow and tutor of his college, and have larger and better rooms, and share the biscuit which he eats with his glass of port with his old friend who kept him company when reading for the schools. The Magdalen mice are kept in check by one of the finest cats in the University. According to undergraduate belief this cat is on the foundation, and its maintenance provided for by endowment. It has a sense of its responsibilities, for it keeps watch or sleeps outside the doors of "Hall," thus safeguarding the alimentary centre of the college.
The market mouse, which haunts Leadenhall and the " Baltic," the railway mouse, a modern variety living in Spiers and Pond's refreshment - rooms, and occasionally travelling and bringing up its family in well-stuffed carriages, the cabmen's-shelter mouse, existing mainly on bits of mashed potato and crushed oats, and the Zo ) mouse are all well- known grades of the town mouse. The Zoo mice are the tamest and least nocturnal of any. If it were desired to write a mono- graph on their habits, there could be no better place to do so than at the Zoo. There their parasitism, or " commensalism," to use the word most in favour for describing unbidden guests of this kind, is not directly dependent on man, but on other animals. They absolutely disregard the keepers and the public, and only seek to keep on terms with the animal whose cage they haunt. It is hint that they reconnoitre to see if he is asleep, his meals they desire to share, his bed which they want to steal a little of, and in the case of some of the birds, such as the emus, his feathers which they want to bite off and take to their nests. They are bold or careful according to the character of the animal-prisoner they live with. In the gulls' and herons' cages, for instance, the Zoo mouse is quick and wary. For all that the herons often spike one on their bills, and, after washing it well, swallow it. Many of the monkeys will catch and kill a mouse, and so will the storks and cranes. The antelope-house, on the other hand, is a paradise for the mice. It is warm, dry, and quiet, and the antelopes do not mind them, and have plenty of oats, which the mice share. They will run over the elands when lying down, and seem to know that no one can enter the stalls to disturb them. They also know that animals which would hurt them are unable to get out. Six weeks ago a mouse trotted deliberately down the centre of the small cats' house at the Zoo. The poor cats, especially the Egyptian wild cats, were wild with excitement, and sprang about in their cages. But the mouse knew he was safe, and strolled down the room and out of the door, stopping at intervals with the utmost assurance and nonchalance. The writer has never seen a mouse in the elephant-house, and is therefore unable to give an opinion as to the alleged nervousness which elephants are said to feel when a mouse runs over their foot, but all mahouts affirm the fact.
The true " country mouse" is a very different creature from the over-civilised town mouse. He does not live directly es a
dependent either on man or the animals kept by man, except in the stable corn bin. His whereabouts in summer is almost un- known. He disappears from houses, yet is not evident, as rats are, in the cornfields and banks. Yet as soon as the stacks have been set up for a month they begin to fill with mice. They multiply between the sheaves, cut runs round the whole circuit of the stack, connect these by cross passages, and have innumerable families. These are always laid in nests made of the soft " flags" of straw shredded and chewed, and young mice in all stages may be found in them from October till May and June. The writer has seen three hundred old mice killed out of one stack, besides the families, which the terriers ate. The most artistic way to catch mice at a stack-thrashing is to walk round as the outer sheaves are lifted, holding a zinc pail. When the sheaf is raised the mice leap from the stack, and the expert fielder catches them neatly in his pail, whence they cannot climb out. The chief mischief done by mice is in these stacks and among grain and seeds. Their peccadilloes in our houses are annoying, and sometimes amount to a serious nuisance. But the loss occasioned to the farmers is great. They waste and spoil more corn than they eat ; " mousy " corn makes bad flour, and it is known that if mice get among bird-seed the birds are soon poisoned. A weasel or " mouse-hunt," as he is called in Suffolk, is more effective in killing them inside stacks than two or three cats watching outside, and they are now com- monly protected for the purpose. It is fortunate that our canntry mouse lives a hand-to-mouth existence, and does not hoard as well as steal, like the "economist mouse" of Siberia and Samstchatka collects hoards both of grain and berries for the winter. There is an allied "econo- mist mouse" in Iceland, which is said to ferry its collections across streams. The story seems to the writer incredible, but it is worth preserving, even as an example of animal myth. According to Dr. Henderson, " the party, which consists of from eight to ten, select a flat piece of cow-dung, in which they place the berries in a heap in the middle ; then by their united force they bring it to the water's-edge, and after launching it, embark, and place themselves round the heap with their heads joined over it, and their backs to the water, their tails serving as rudders." In the Hudson Bay territory there is a house mouse which hoards. This is the white-footed mouse, which makes stores of grain, pieces of fat, and other food likely to be useful in winter. " What is most singular," writes Dr. Richardson, who observed it as far north as the Great Bear Lake, "is that these hoards are not found in the animals' retreats, but generally in a shoe left at the bedside, the pocket of a coat, a nightcap, a bag hung against the wall, or in some similar place. It not unfrequently happened that we found barley, which had been brought from a distant apartment, introduced into a drawer, and that through so small a chink that it was impossible for the mouse to gain access to its store. The ermine is an inveterate enemy to this species, and pursues it even into the sleeping-rooms of houses."
The reason for this hoarding habit is probably the desire, common to animals living far north, to provide for the winter ; but it is evident, if this is so, that this mouse has not yet learnt that civilised man, the new corner to the north, may be relied on to provide board as well as lodging through- out the year. This mouse is not yet thoroughly demoralised in the Hudson Bay country. It is said to be found in North California. If so, it would be interesting to learn whether it has the same instinct to hoard in this more southern and more thickly populated latitude. Our "country mouse" does not as a rule steal or spoil domestic articles like the house mouse ; it makes its nest of what it finds out of doors, and leaves human property, other than grain, untouched. In this respect also America is worse off as regards mice than the Old Country. A large mouse discovered by Mr. Drummond in the Rocky Mountains used to gnaw the fur-traders' packs, cut up and carry away their blankets, and even eat their boots. "A stout pair of English shoes were put on a shelf of rock, and in a few days were found gnawed into fragments as fine as sawdust." It is to be hoped that no rash acclitnatiser will introduce this mouse as a pet into this country. If a referendum on the subject of domestic pests were submitted to the mistresses and maids of England, the extinction of the indigenous mouse would be decreed unconditionally. The only plea in its favour which they would possibly entertain would be the justification which its presence lends for the sets.
vices of the household cat and kittens. But nothing short of a demand for mouse-fur as an article of luxury would cause any permanent decrease in their numbers.
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