My object in writing about these mice is to call attention to their peculiar method of communication. I have summered and wintered them over fifteen years, and never have I heard one of them utter a vocal sound. They communicate with each other by drumming with their fore feet, or, rather, they drum with their toes, for the foot in the act is held rigid while the toes move.
If any writer has called attention to this peculiar method of communication, it has escaped my reading. I am well satisfied that the habit has never been published before, so it must prove interesting to those who pry into the secrets of Dame Nature.
The white-footed mouse has taken possession of my cabin. Until a year ago the mice were kept in check by stoats, but for some reason the stoats have failed to appear, and the mice are increasing rapidly. I find their nests in every nook and corner. I go bareheaded the most of the time, so it happens that when I do need a hat I find it occupied by an enterprising mouse and her family. Now a few mice for company in the winter evenings would not be objectionable, but I draw the line when they become so numerous that I am forced to eat and sleep with them. They are too cunning and intelligent to be kept in check by traps. I have tried all kinds of traps, only to find them useless. Last winter I bought a wire rat-trap—the kind with a trencher that tips and slides the rat into the space below. The trap was a failure. The mice were highly delighted with the contrivance, and from the first used the trencher as a door leading into and out of the trap.
How does it happen that these shy inhabitants of the woods are more intelligent than the cunning citrat?
Some writers tell us that the lower animals cannot reason. In such case it ought to be an easy matter for man to outwit a lot of foolish little mice. I tried the experiment by fixing a wire to the trencher in such a way as to give me full control. When the mice were engaged on the food in the trap I pulled my wire and made it fast. The next morning my prisoners numbered twenty-eight. I was about to drown the lot, when several pets clung to the upper wires of the trap, and the mute appeal in their great wild eyes softened my foolish heart, and I thought it would be more humane to lose them in the woods. I carried them nearly a mile from the cabin, and turned them out near some big boulders. I left a supply of food, and promised myself to feed them from time to time. Two nights later they were all back in the cabin. Upon investigation I found that they had followed my footsteps. I could see their tracks in the snow where they had trooped along in short journeys. At the end of each journey the tracks would disappear under a boulder or a tree, only to appear again, but always heading for the cabin.
I baited and fixed the trap, while the mice scampered about, evidently celebrating their return. I told them plainly that this was their last night on earth; that I had outwitted them once and would now outwit them again. But all my boasting came to naught. Not a mouse would enter that trap while the wire was on the trencher. The third night I removed the wire, and the mice entered the trap without fear.
Vainglorious man had pitted his wit against the wit of these little rodents, and the rodents had triumphed. Every sportsman knows how it is. He finds the wild things just as intelligent and crafty as man with all his boasted superiority.
I desire to emphasize what I have already stated as to the peculiar method employed by these mice when communicating with each other.