that their many enemies fail to exterminate them.

"The number of traps invented for the purpose of taking mice," writes Mr. Wood, "is beyond the power of statistics to give. There are ingenious boards placed on shelves, which tilt the mouse into a basin of water below, where it swims about for many minutes, and at last sinks through sheer exhaustion. Struggling for life and fighting for breath to the last moment of its little life, it continues its vain efforts even while slowly sinking below the surface. This is generally applauded as a merciful trap. Then there is a spring trap, that drives a steel spike through the mouse's brain, causing instantaneous death. This is generally stigmatised (especially by ladies) as a cruel trap. There is another' merciful' trap, the box trap, that shuts it in without hurting it, and affords it a piece of cheese to eat, and a view from between the bars until it is shaken out of the trap and carried off by the cat, who picks it up and takes it to her kittens, who practise upon it the art of mouse-catching and tormenting, which they hope soon to begin on their own account. There is the garotte trap, which strangles the mouse, and the arithmetical 4 trap, which mashes it flat. But there is still extant an account of a trap that, from the elaborate description, must be a most valuable one, and which the describer has wisely prevented from being too common, by enveloping his account in such a mist of impenetrable language, that no one whom I have met has been able to form the least idea of the description of trap intended-what may be its form, how the mouse is to be caught, or what catches it. In sheer despair, I present the account to my readers, together with a hope that one of them may be able to make a trap by means of the description, and that, if so, he will kindly forward to me a sketch :

'And again he telleth of another manner of catching of mice, which is as great as the first, and it is after this manner: Take two smooth boards about the lenth of thy arm, and in breadth half thy arm, but joyn it so together, that they may be distant from the lower part in lenth some four fingers, or little less, with two small spindles or clefts, which must be at every end one, and fasten paper under them, and put a piece of paste therein, being cut overthwart in the middle, but you must not fasten it nigh the middle, and let it be so bound, that it may easily be lifted up betwixt the spindles, that if by slipping it should be altered, it might

be brought again to the same form. But the two spindles spoken of before, ought to be joyned together in the ends above, and beyond them another small spindle to be made, which may hold in the middle a crooked wedge or butten, upon the which may be hanged a piece of hogskin, so that one of them may be easily turned upside down with the skin, and put thou thereunto a little piece of earth or stick, that the mice may easily come to it: So that how many mice soever shall come thereto, and to the meat, shall be taken, always by rouling the paper into his wonted place.'

The fecundity of the mouse is as great as that of the rat, for it breeds at all times of the year, and frequently produces three families in the course of one year, each family numbering from four to six. In a fortnight the young are able to obtain their own living, and in a few weeks more become parents themselves. An experiment on the fecundity of this animal was made so long ago as the time of Aristotle. He placed in a closed box well stored with grain one female mouse who was about to become a mother, and kept the box closed for some time. When the box was opened he found an hundred and twenty mice, all sprung from one parent.

If any one wishes to repeat the experiment, he must be very careful about a plentiful supply of food, or his mice may come to the same untimely end that befell a company of mice whom a boy had put in a box and forgotten for some time. When he remembered his neglect, he hastened to open his box, and found there only one great mouse, sitting in solitary misery among the relics of his companions, of whom he was the sole survivor, hunger having compelled them to kill and eat one another.

"It is not so easy to clear a house of mice as many people imagine, particularly if traps are used as the means of destruction. Many will be caught when the traps are first set, but the numbers fall off, and at last cease altogether, when the householder flatters himself that the mice are all gone. But the fact is that the little creatures have learned caution, and have only avoided entering the trap, while they still continue their depredations. They not only take warning from seeing their fellows caught, but if one that has been captured has been suffered to make its escape, the trap may as well be removed, for no more mice will be caught. After a month or two, it may again be used with success.

"During my residence in college, the mice

had been a fertile source of annoyance. They nibbled my candles in two, so that they would not stand upright; they drank my milk; they pattered with their little feet over my butter; they raced about between the papered canvas and the stone wall, until the wall was riddled with holes made by a toasting-fork thrust through the paper, in the vain hope of spearing them; they would run across my carpet in the most undisguised manner; until I determined to extirpate them. So I got a double trap, baited it very temptingly, and placed it in the closet. Scarcely had the door been closed, when two smart blows told of the capture of two mice. They were speedily immolated, and the trap again set. During the first two or three days the trap was constantly going off, until I was tired of going and taking out the mice. The others, however, took warning, and came more and more sparingly, until it was a rare thing to catch one young mouse in a day, and after a week or so, none were caught at all, although the trap was baited with most savoury toasted cheese, and my candles suffered as before. I then bethought me of changing the bait so, after suffering the trap to be well aired, and the scent of the cheese to evaporate, I substituted a piece of tallow with great success, for the mice came nearly as fast as ever. When they had begun to dread the latter, a piece of bacon was used as the bait, and by systematically changing the bait, great numbers were caught. At last, however, the mice seemed to comprehend that the trap was in fault, and not the bait, and I had to substitute a 4 trap, to which they again came in multitudes, and as the descending weight was a very large book, several often perished at once.

"I once made an experiment on a mouse of rather a singular description. At that time galvanism had become rather a fashionable study among the members of the University; and numerous were the experiments that were tried, from firing gunpowder under water, to knocking down a scout with an electric shock. I happened to have an excellent home-made battery, only a small single-cell one, but one which would cause an electro-magnet to sustain a weight of forty pounds, and, when connected with a coil, would give a tolerably severe shock. A mouse happened to be caught, and the wires were thrust into the trap, as much in jest as in earnest. The mouse, seeing the wires, and, being enraged at its incarceration, dashed at them, and happened to place its feet upon one at the moment that it seized the other in its

mouth. I thought that it seemed singularly indifferent to the battery, and withdrew the wire on finding that no effect had been pro. duced. The mouse, however, remained in exactly the same position; and, upon a close examination, proved to be quite dead. On opening the trap and inclining it, the mouse slid out as if it had been carved in wood. All its limbs were rigidly stiff, and its neck stretched out in exactly the same position in which it had bitten at the wire. It is impossible to imagine any death more sudden than this must have been; for it was so instantaneous that no perceptible sign appeared to mark the moment when the life left the body."

Mr. Smee relates the following instance of the sagacity of the mouse in refusing to be caught a second time :—

Many years ago, I caught a common mouse in a trap, and, instead of consigning it to the usual watery grave, or to the unmerciful claws of the cat, I determined to keep it a prisoner. After a short time the little mouse made its escape in a room attached to my father's residence in the Bank of England. I did not desire the presence of a wild mouse in the room, and therefore adopted means to secure him. The room was paved with stone, and enclosed with solid walls. There was no hope for him that he would ultimately escape, although there were abundant opportunities for hiding. I set the trap and baited it with a savoury morsel; but day after day no mouse entered. The poor little thing gave unequivocal signs of extreme hunger, by gnawing the bladder from some of my chemical bottles. I gradually removed everything from the room that he could possibly eat, but still the old proverb of Once caught, twice shy' so far applied, that he would not enter my trap. After many days, on visiting the apartment one morning, the trap was down, the mouse was caught; the pangs of hunger were more intolerable than the terror of imprisonment. He did not, however, will the unpleasant alter native of entering the trap until he was so nearly starved that his bones almost protruded through his skin; and he freely took bits of food from my fingers through the bars of the cage."

The proverb is well known that speaks of rats deserting a falling house. Topsell gives a circumstantial account of such a proceeding in the following lines:

"It is also very certain that mice which live in a house, if they perceive by the age of it, it

be ready to fall down, or subject to any other ruin, they fore-know it, and depart out of it, as may appear by this notable story, which happened in a town called Helice, in Greece, wherein the inhabitants committed this abominable act against their neighbours the Greeks. For they slew them, and sacrificed them upon their altars. Whereupon followed the ruine of the city, which was premonstrated by this prodigious event. For five days before the destruction thereof, all the mice, weesils, and serpents, and other reptile creatures, went out of the same in the presence of the inhabitants, every one assembling to his own rank and company; whereat the people wondered much, for they could not conceive any true cause of their departure, and no marvail. For God, which had appointed to take vengeance on them for their wickedness, did not give them so much knowledge, nor make them so wise as the beasts, to avoid His judgment and their own destruction; and, therefore, mark what followed. For these beasts were no sooner out of the city, but suddenly in the night-time came such a lamentable earthquake and strong tempest, that all the houses did not only fall down, and not one of them stood upright, to the slaughter of men, women, and children contained in them, but, lest any of them should escape the strokes of the timber and housetops, God sent also such a great floud of waters, by reason of the tempestuous winde, which drove the waters out of the sea upon the town, that swept them all away, leaving no more behind than naked and bare significations of former buildings. And not only the city and citizens perished, but also there was ten ships of the Lacedæmonians in their port, all drowned at that instant."

In another part of his voluminous work, he enumerates some of the qualities of "Ye vulgar little mouse," among which he numbers its capability of domestication, and gives the following account of a very tame mouse:—

"Albertus writeth, that he saw in Upper Germany a mouse holding a burning candle in her feet, at the commandment of her master, all the time his guests were at supper."

Most people have heard of the famous "sing. ing mouse," whose musical performances attracted so much attention some years ago. Many sceptical individuals classed the animal with the "whistling oyster," and undisguisedly expressed their incredulity. However, the little animal certainly did produce musical sounds, although they did not, as was asserted, rival

the notes of the canary and nightingale, either in volume, strength, or sweetness.

The field-mice are extremely injurious when they exist in great numbers, as they are very partial to the young shoots of various plants, and by nibbling them off, prevent the plant from attaining its full growth. They are very difficult to find, as they hide themselves so carefully, that, even in the fields where they swarm, it is by no means an easy matter to catch a sight of them. There is a meadow in Wiltshire, where, by carefully watching almost any square yard of grass, a short-tailed fieldmouse is nearly sure to be found. Yet that field had been used for cricket, hockey, football, and many other games, for a long time before any one discerned a single mouse. field-mouse is caught and put down on the grass of even a newly-mown field, it glides so neatly under the grass, pressing close to the ground, and scarcely permitting the slightest motion of a single blade to betray its pressure, that if the eye is taken off for a moment, it is almost impossible to catch sight of it again.

If a

But concealed as the mice are from human eye, the vision of the owl or kestrel soon detects them. Woe to the unfortunate field-mouse that dare show its nose above ground if a kestrel is hovering about; for down comes the sharpeyed bird, and flies away with the mouse in its talons. At night, too, the large eyes of the owl soon descry its movements, and the softplumed bird, floating over with its noiseless flight, strikes its talons into the unsuspecting mouse, and either swallows it whole on the spot, or carries it off to its nest, where the young owls are expecting their parent. Indeed, were it not for the exertions of the hawks and owls, who pounce on them from above, and the weasels and stoats, who chase them on the ground, we might fare little better than Bishop Hatto, whose tragical story is related by various authors, and among these, by Coryat, in his "Crudities."

"Here followeth the history of Hatto, Archbishop of Mentz. It happened in the year 914, that there was an exceeding great famine in Germany, at what time Otho, surnamed the Great, was emperor, and one Hatto, an Abbot of Fulda, was Archbishop of Mentz, of the Bishops after Crescens and Crescentius, the two and thirtieth, after the Archbishops of Saint Bonifacius the thirteenth. This Hatto in the time of this great famine aforementioned, when he saw the poor people of the country exceed

ingly oppressed with famine, assembled a great company of them into a barn, and like a most accursed and mercilesse caitiffe, burnt up those poor innocent souls, that were so far from doubting any such matter, that they rather hoped to receive some comfort and relief at his hands.

"The reason that moved the prelate to commit that execrable impiety was, because he thought the famine would the sooner cease, if those unprofitable beggars that consumed more bread than they were worthy to eat, were dispatched out of this world. For he said that these poor folks were like to mice, that were good for nothing but to devour corne. But God Almighty, the just Avenger of the poor folk's quarrell, did not long suffer this hainous tyranny-this most detestable factunpunished. For He mustered up an army of mice against the archbishop, and sent them to persecute him as his furious Alastors, so that they afflicted him both day and night, and would not suffer him to take his rest in any place. Whereupon, the prelat, thinking that he should be secure from the injury of mice, if he were in a certain tower that standeth in the Rhine, near to the towne, betook himself unto the said tower as safe refuge and sanctuary from his enemies, and locked himself in. But the innumerable troopes of mice chased him continually very eagerly, and swamme unto him upon the top of the water, to execute the just judgment of God; and so at last he was most miserably devoured by those sillie creatures, who pursued him with such bitter hostility, that it is recorded they scraped and knawed out his very name from the walls and tapestry wherein it was written, after they had so cruelly devoured his body, Wherefore the tower wherein he was eaten up by the mice is shown to this day for a perpetual monument to all succeeding ages of the barbarous and inhuman tyranny of this impious prelate, being situate in a little green island in the midst of the Rhine, near to the towne of Wingen, and

is commonly called in the German tongue, the Mowse-turn.”*

The address of Burns to the mouse when he turned her up in her nest with the plough, will at once be recalled:

"Wee, sleekit,† cow'rin', timorous beastie, Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa' so hasty,

Wi' bickerin' brattle !!

I wad be laith to rin and chase thee,
Wi' murd'rin' pattle.§

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal.

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin',
An' naething now to big a new ane,

A' foggage green!

An' bleak December's win's ensuin',
Baith snell and keen.

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin' fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought's to dwell,
Till, crash! the cruel coulter pass'd

Out through thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble;
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch†† cauld

But, mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley,‡‡

An' lea's us nought but grief an' pain
For promis'd joy."

"Mause-thurm "-the Mouse Tower.

Sleek, sly. A short race or hurry. § A ploughstaff. Build. Bitter, biting. ** Suffer, endure.

+ The hoar-frost. ‡‡ Wrong.

C. A. H. B.

HOSE who do not smile at all expres. sions of mutual affection in print, will find pleasure in the following correspondence between the first Governor of Massachusetts, the Hon. John Winthrop, and his excellent lady. We are so apt to regard our forefathers only as men stern and inflexible in their sense of duty, that it is indeed refreshing to soften the picture with the mild colouring of domestic happiness. These letters are peculiarly interesting; because the writers had been many years married, and had arrived at that sober meridian of life, when the worldly and the profligate would make us believe that love is considered as the mere idle dream of youth.

The following letter was probably written in 1624 or 1625:

"MOST DEAR AND LOVING HUSBAND, -I cannot express my love to you as I desire, in these poor, lifeless lines; but I do heartily wish you did see my heart, how true and faithful it is to you, and how much I do desire to be always with you, to enjoy the sweet comfort of your presence, and those helps from you in spiritual and temporal duties, which I am so unfit to perform without you. It makes me to see the want of you, and wish myself with you. But I desire we may be guided by God in all our ways, who is able to direct us for the best; and so I will wait upon Him with patience, who is all-sufficient for me. Desiring to be remembered in your prayers, I bid my good husband good night. Farewell. Your obedient wife,

66

"MARGARET WINTHROP."

In 1627 or 1628:

"MY MOST SWEET HUSBAND,-How dearly welcome thy kind letter was to me, I am not able to express. The sweetness of it did much refresh me. What can be more pleasing to a wife, than to hear of the welfare of her best beloved, and how he is pleased with her poor endeavours! I blush to hear myself commended, knowing my own wants. But it is your love that conceives the best, and makes. all things seem better than they are. I wish that I may be always pleasing to thee, and that those comforts we have in each other may be daily increased, as far as they may be pleas

ing to God. I will use that speech to thee, that Abigail did to David: 'I will be a servant to wash the feet of my lord.' I will do any service wherein I may please my good husband. I confess I cannot do enough for thee; but thou art pleased to accept the will for the deed, and rest contented.

"I have many reasons to make me love thee, whereof I will name two: first, because thou lovest God; and, secondly, because thou lovest me. If these two were wanting, all the rest would be eclipsed. But I must leave this discourse, and go about my household affairs. I am a bad housewife to be so long from them; but I must needs borrow a little time to talk with thee, my sweet heart. I hope thy business draws to an end. It will be but two or three weeks before I see thee, though they be long ones. God will bring us together in His good time; for which I shall pray. "Farewell, my good husband; the Lord keep Your obedient wife,

thee.

"MY GOOD WIFE, - Although I wrote to thee last week, yet, having so fit opportunity, I must needs write to thee again; for I do esteem one little sweet, short letter of thine (such as the last was) to be well worthy two or three from me.

"I began this letter yesterday at two o'clock, thinking to have been large, but was so taken up by company and business, as I could get but hither by this morning. It grieves me that I have not liberty to make better expression of my love to thee, who art more dear to me than all earthly things; but I will en⚫ deavour that my prayers may supply the defect of my pen, which will be of use to us both, inasmuch as the favour and blessing of God is better than all things besides.

"I know thou lookest for troubles here, and when one affliction is over, to meet with another; but remember our Saviour tells us, 'Be of good comfort, I have overcome the world.' Therefore, my sweet wife, raise up thy heart, and be not dismayed at the crosses thou