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.