Evening star. [volume], July 07, 1940, Page 14, Image 90

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Carusos Of The Mouse Trap
■——Hill HU I I!' II > ' I I" I - kwfflfc • -
Drawing by Mariorin Groce
The ones that sing are just ordinary, everyday mice
If that mouse in the
closet can sing, you've
a treasure — so listen!
IIke many other readers I have
been admiring the accomplish
I ments of Kit and Kim, the danc
ing mice in Walt Disney's new Jiminy
Cricket series in This Week. And I
hope they won’t think it disloyal if I
say that there are other talented mice.
I personally met one not long ago that
should have been with Soldier Zeppo’s
team.
It was in Peiping, China, and one
morning my Number One Boy brought
a little bamboo cage into my office. It
contained a "common” or "garden”
house mouse. .
“Master, you wantchee buy mouse?”
“Why on earth should I buy a
mouse?" I asked. “There are lots too
by Roy Chapman
Andrews
Director of the American Museum
of Natural History
many of them about the place now.”
"Oh, Master, this a very special
mouse — he sing. Very rare. He cost
live dolla.”
“All right,” 1 said. “Leave the
mouse. If he sings I’ll give you live
dollars. If not, you take him back."
I had heard of “singing mice” in
China. America and other countries
of the world. I thought it would be
interesting to make my own observa
tions. I put the little cage on a corner
of my desk.
Nothing happened until late after
noon. Then, for some reason, he seemed
excited. Standing on his hind feet and
grasping the bars with his front paws
he poked his nose in the air and began
a senes of musical chirps and twitters.
It was very birdlike in quality with
variation in notes and tones, but
rather weak in volume. I could not
distinguish it at a distance of more
than fifteen feet. The noise was just as
definitely a song as that of a bird, but
did not seem to have any particular
theme. And it was not a whistle such
as would be caused by an inflamma
tion of the respiratory tract.
I kept the little fellow lor a week.
During that time he sang frequently
but most often in the evening. Some
times it went on intermittently for an
hour or more. Then one night my
office door was left open and a stray
cat discovered my little singing com
panion. All I found in the morning was
a broken bamboo cage.
During all my years in China. I
never saw another, so they must be
rare. I am told that, in 1937, radio
listeners were astonished by the an
nouncement from a Chicago station
that they were to hear the vocal efforts
of a singing mouse that had been dis
covered in a children’s center near
that city A series of quite musical
chirps and trills came over the air
waves, produced, it was asserted, by
the singing mouse.
Mrs. William LeRoy Cahall. of New
York City, whose apartment contained
a collection of some three hundred
tropical birds, discovered that she had
three singing mice in her home. It has
been reported that “Dr. Cahall saw
the mice: a little one with a shrill
melodious ‘soprano,’ a medium-sized
mouse with [shades of the three bears)
a medium-sized voice, and a big, fat
one with a deep ‘chirrup.’ ”
Dr. Lee R. Dice, a biologist of the
University of Michigan, carried on a
most interesting study of singing
mice and published his results in the
Journal of Mammalogy, 1932. His
bibliography lists titles of forty-three
papers on singing mice published in
English, French, Spanish and German.
Dr. Dice concludes that singing house
mice have been observed in many
parts of the world; that both males
and females have this rare habit and
that the songs are of several different
types; and that the singing habit is
not inherited. A complicated song has
been described as rarely occurring in
deer mice and harvest mice.
My advice to all of you who have
mice in your house is: Watch and
listen. Maybe they will prove to be a
boon. You may have a rare singing
mouse.
DEFINITIONS: Wise and Otherwise
Lazy man: One who is going to do
many things tomorrow.
Wise man: A man who. when he has
nothing to say, says it.
Expert: One who knows more and
more about less and less.
Fool: One who, when he can't see
through a windowpane, smashes it
instead of washing it.
Efficiency expert: One who has no
business of his own to wreck.
Benefactor: One who makes two
smiles grow where only one grew
before. — Dcpew.
Successful man: A man who does as
much today as he plans to do to
morrow.
Collected oy
Jno. Garland Pollard
Former Goternor of Virginia
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Name-----:-— |
Street-----|
City_State-______ _J
STRANGER
THAN MAN
A rattlesnake does not always
warn before striking. He shakes his
tail, upon which the rattles are at
tached. because of nervous excite
ment or fear. If he is surprised so
quickly that there is no time for ner
vous excitement to cause the tail to
vibrate, he will strike without sound
ing his ominous warning.
* * *
Sheepherders on the Western
ranges do not have a great love for all
of nature's bright blossoms. Some
times they lose half their herds when
the animals eat the colorful but deadly
larkspur, nnlkweed and other toxic
weeds.
* * *
Scientific tests reveal that a tuna
fish can swim at the sensational
speed of forty-four miles pier hour.
* ♦ •
No fish can live in Great Salt Lake,
Utah The only living thing found
there is a small “brine” shrimp.
» • •
In the early days of aviation a num
ber of fox farms were forced to move
away from near-by airpxirts because
the mother foxes were killing their
entire litters. The owners finally dis
covered that it was the noise of the
airplanes that made the mothers ner
vous and accounted for their crazed
behavior — CARL KULBCRG
f-—-1
V ,ll| BASE BALI -TO
Priscilla
"When a guy buys any, you
be sure to gd back later
and yell, 'Ice-cold soda!' "