The mouse is much smaller than the rat, more numerous and more
generally diffused. Its instinct, temperament, and disposition is the
same; and it differs only in its weakness, and the habits resulting
from it. Timid by nature, and familiar from necessity, fear and want
are the sole springs of its actions. It never leaves its hiding place
but to seek for food; nor does it go from house to house, like the
rat, unless forced; nor is it near so mischievous; its manners are
milder, and to a certain degree it may be tamed, but it is incapable of
attachment; how indeed is it possible to love those who are perpetually
laying snares for us! Though weak he has more enemies than the rat,
from whom he has no means of escape but his agility and minuteness. The
owls, birds of prey, cats, weasels, and even rats, make war upon mice,
while man, by snares and other means, destroy them by thousands. But
for their immense fecundity they could not subsist; they bring forth at
all seasons, several times in the year, generally have five or six at a
time, and which in less than 15 days are sufficiently strong to shift
for themselves. As they so soon attain perfection, their duration of
life must be short, a circumstance which must necessarily heighten our
ideas of their prodigious multiplication. Aristotle[O] tells us that
he put a pregnant mouse into a vessel with plenty of corn, and that he
soon after found 120 mice all sprung from the same mother.
[O] Vide Aristotle Hist. Animal. Lib. vi. Cap. 37.
These little animals are not ugly, but have much vivacity and acuteness
in their looks; nor is there any foundation for that horror some people
hold towards them, but the little surprises and inconveniences they
sometimes occasion. All mice are rather white under the belly, some
are quite white, others more or less brown or black. The species is
generally spread over Europe, Asia, and Africa; but it is said they had
no mice formerly in America, and that, though now so very numerous,
they were originally brought from the old continent. Certain it is that
this little animal, while it fears human society, closely attends it,
and this probably from its natural appetite for bread, cheese, bacon,
oil, butter, and other kinds of food which man prepares for himself.