e attention of the officers, who, with
one consent, resolved to suffer it to continue its singular actions
unmolested. Its exertions now appeared to be greater every moment; it
shook its head, leaped about the table, and exhibited signs of the most
ecstatic delight. After performing actions that an animal so diminutive
would at first sight seem incapable of, the little creature suddenly
ceased to move, fell down, and expired, without evincing any symptoms
of pain.

An officer confined to the Bastille, at Paris, begged to be allowed to
play on his lute, to soften his confinement by its harmonies. Shortly
afterwards, when playing on the instrument, he was much astonished to
see a number of mice come frisking out of their holes, and many spiders
descending from their webs, and congregating round him while he
continued the music. Whenever he ceased, they dispersed; whenever he
played again, they reappeared. He soon had a numerous audience,
amounting to about a hundred mice and spiders.

Mr. Olafsen gives an account of the remarkable instinct of the Iceland
mouse. In a country where berries are but thinly dispersed, these
little animals are obliged to cross rivers to make their distant
forages. In their return with the booty to their magazines, they are
obliged to repass the stream. "The party, which consists of from six to
ten, select a flat piece of dried cow-dung, on which they place the
berries on a heap in the middle; then, by their united force, they
bring it to the water's edge, and, after launching it, embark and place
themselves round the heap, with their heads joined over it and their
backs to the water, their tails pendent in the stream, serving the
purpose of rudders." Remarkable as this story is, the truth of it is
confirmed by many people who have watched the arrangements of the tiny
navigators.

THE DORMOUSE.

Mr. Mangili, an Italian naturalist, made some curious experiments upon
the _dormouse_. He kept one in the cupboard in his study. When the
thermometer was 8 deg. above the freezing point, the little animal curled
himself up among a heap of papers, and went to sleep. It was
ascertained that the animal breathed, and suspended his respiration, at
regular intervals, sometimes every four minutes. Within ten days from
his beginning to sleep, the dormouse awoke, and ate a little. He then
went to sleep again, and continued through the winter to sleep some
days and then to awaken; but as the weather became