Juniata Sentinel And Republican

Youths' Column.

Musical Mice.—It is a well-known fact, that pleasant sounds attract mice from their hiding-places, and cause them to forget all fear. They come in broad daylight into a room where one is playing on a musical instrument. Some people declare that mice walk over the keys of pianos which are left open, to hear the tones, and many stories are related of mice learning to sing—that is, to utter sounds which resemble the low notes of the canary and other caged birds. Disputes have arisen among learned people about this singing, some declaring it to be only a plaintive utterance of danger or distress, whilst others say that mice in their healthiest and gayest moods utter these pleasant sounds. A man whose name I do not remember says, 'Some mice had chosen their habitation behind the woodwork in my kitchen. I allowed them to go on undisturbed. What a charming family they were! A fine singing canary hung in the kitchen; and, strange to say, the twittering of the mice became a complete imitation of the notes of the canary, at first weak and imperfect, but improving from day to day. Although it did not reach the strength, fullness and richness of the notes of the bird, yet it excelled them in softness and tenderness. I often listened to them with the greatest pleasure in the evening, when the canary, with its head under its wing, was fast asleep. More than one kitchen guest looked toward the canary and about the room with astonishment, saying, "Is that a bird singing, sir?"

A lady writes: "When I was a girl, I used to practice my music in an old-fashioned parlor, separated from the rest of the house by a large hall. I think I might have felt lonely, shut up in that room three consecutive hours every day but for a dear little mouse that evidently appreciated my music more than I did, and often made me a visit.

"For more than a month that little creature, or some other, seated itself fearlessly near the instrument every time I began to practice, and often remained half an hour or more. Sometimes it would go and come two or three times in the course of the forenoon. It must have come for the music, for no food was ever allowed in that stately old room."