I.—ARTHUR SULLIVAN.
There is hardly a boy or girl in this country who does not know some of the tunes in Pinafore by heart—few, indeed, among our readers who have not heard the opera—and all will be interested in hearing something about the composer of that delightful music.
Arthur Sullivan is a bright-eyed, dark-haired man thirty-seven years of age. When quite a little fellow he was a choir-boy in the chapel of St. James's Palace in London, and at thirteen years he had made such progress in musical studies that he composed an anthem that was sung in the chapel before the Queen. On this occasion, he relates, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, the Bishop of London patted him on the head, and gave him ten shillings. At the age of fourteen, Arthur Sullivan won the Mendelssohn Scholarship in the Royal Academy of Music, being the youngest of those who tried for it, and was sent to Leipsic, in Germany, to study under the most famous musicians of the time.
Strange though it may seem, the name of the composer of Pinafore first became known by a sacred oratorio, called the Prodigal Son. Since that time Mr. Sullivan has written other oratorios, as well as a great many songs that are sung everywhere; and there is hardly a hymn-book that does not contain several hymns by this same great musician. The composer of Pinafore has followed up his success in that opera with two others (also commencing with a P), the Pirates of Penzance and Patience, and it is said that he is already at work upon yet another one.
It may be said that comic operas are very light work for a great musician to devote himself to; but those which Arthur Sullivan has composed are the best of their kind, and the man who makes people glad-hearted does as much good as he who makes them wise.
THE PLEASURES OF NUTTING-TIME.
[MICE AS PETS.]
There is one kind of pets, and a very amusing kind they are too, which every boy can have simply by setting a trap, and no one will object to the snaring of them, or speak of the cruelty of depriving them of their liberty. These pets are little bright-eyed, long-tailed mice, which can be induced to display quite as much affection as any other pet, and which are wonderfully interesting whether at play or at work.
Mice are not difficult to tame; they show great fondness for the one who feeds them, and if their cage be properly cared for, are as cleanly pets as one could wish to have.
To deprive mice of their liberty hardly seems cruel, since they are so mischievous and destructive, and the boy who makes pets of them, provided he catches them at home, takes away just so many provoking bits of mischief from his mother's pantry, which is much better than to snare birds or squirrels.
Mice will live and breed in a cage, and be quite as happy as when enjoying their liberty, for they are accustomed to make a home of such tiny places that they do not suffer in confinement, as pets do who find their greatest pleasure in roaming.
It is possible to buy white mice at any bird-fancier's, but there are reasons why it is better to have at least half your pets of the ordinary house mice rather than to have them all white. One is that your mother will look with more favor upon your mouse pet if it is one the less from the number that annoy her.
There is hardly any necessity of telling a boy how to set a mouse-trap, and in almost every house his labor will be very quickly rewarded with as many as he can care for.
But once the industrious little fellows are caught and caged, do not make the cruel mistake of thinking because they are only mice they do not need any care. As long as they were in the walls, or under the floors, they could take care of themselves, for they knew to the fraction of an inch on which particular portion of the shelf the cheese was placed, and exactly how to get at the bread. But when they have been deprived of their liberty, it becomes the duty of their captor to see that they want for nothing. What is true of any pet is equally true of mice; they are entitled to all the care and attention they need as soon as they are deprived of the power to care for themselves.
If one wants to have very tame mice, so tame that they can be taught to come out of their cage at the word of command, and return to it when the play is over, he should catch young ones, and put them in a cage with wire front and solid back and sides.
Almost any kind of a hard-wood box, not less than twelve inches long and wide, and eight inches high, can be made into a good cage by running wires about the size of an ordinary knitting-needle up and down the front, about a quarter of an inch apart. Then cut a small sliding door at one side, and have the back made to slide up and down for purposes of cleanliness. If at one end a small run-around, made of stout wire set very closely together, be placed, the pets will have such a home as they will be perfectly contented and happy in.
At one corner of the cage should be some rags for a nest, and unless there are little ones in it, this nest must be removed at least once each week. The entire cage should be washed quite as often, and every care must be taken to keep it sweet and clean. Dry sand or sawdust is a good thing to scatter over the floor of the house, as it can then be cleaned readily by simply scraping the old sand out and pouring in fresh.
Mice when at liberty are great builders, and have many curious ways of providing snug quarters for their young. In one instance a number of empty bottles had been stowed away upon a shelf, and among them was found one which was tenanted by a mouse. The little creature had considered that the bottle would afford a suitable home for her young, and had therefore conveyed into it a quantity of bedding which she made into a nest. The bottle was filled with the nest, and the eccentric architect had taken the precaution to leave a round hole corresponding to the neck of the bottle. In this remarkable domicile the young were placed; and it is a fact worthy of notice that no attempt had been made to shut out the light. Nothing would have been easier than to have formed the cavity at the under side, so that the soft materials of the nest would exclude the light; but the mouse had simply formed a comfortable hollow for her young, and therein she had placed them.
The rapidity with which a mouse can make a nest is somewhat surprising. Some few years ago, in a farmer's house, a loaf of newly baked bread was placed upon a shelf, according to custom. Next day a hole was observed in the loaf; and when it was cut open a mouse and her nest were discovered within, the latter being made of paper. On examination, the material of the habitation was found to have been obtained from a copy-book, which had been torn into shreds and arranged in the form of a nest. Within this curious home were nine new-born mice. Thus in the space of thirty-six hours at most the loaf must have cooled, the interior been excavated, the book found and cut into suitable pieces, the nest made, and the young brought into the world.
If you have started your mouse menagerie with young mice, they should be given a soft warm nest, and fed on bread and milk until they are grown, when almost anything may be given them. Water should always be provided for them, and the dish in which it is kept must be shallow, or they may drown themselves.
If you whistle or make some peculiar noise when you feed them, they will soon learn to associate the sound with the pleasure of eating, and come out of their nest at the summons. To make them eat from the hand, exclude cheese from their bill of fare several days, and then hold a bit that is toasted where they can get it. The temptation will be so strong that at the second trial they will take it from their master, and after that they will eat from his hand very readily.
Young mice are great acrobats, and the antics of the little climbers and leapers are very amusing when they have space sufficient in which to display their skill.
Several instances are recorded of mice that made musical sounds something like a soft low warble, and it has been thought by some that this musical power might be cultivated so that they really could become singing mice! But this is open to very many doubts, their vocal organs being so entirely different from birds.
The most reasonable supposition is that the mice that are reported as having sung were affected with some disease in the lungs or air-passages, which caused the piping noise called music.