Show MUSIC AND MICE A suggestion of a norel trap effect of piano playing on rodents truth of london suggests that as mice like music there is on independent fortune awaiting the man who will invent a email music box which when wound will run all night since such a contrivance would servo to call mice into traps and would be to the mice what a decoy is to a flock of ducks or i looking glass to a tiger after this suggestion which is not untrue to nature truth goes on to ay that music that bounds out of kilter to a critics cars would also drive mice from the house if the truth writer had even actually been a mouse under the influence of music ho would never have made that mistake neither would he have said an accordion would also make the agile rodent desert the house as ho is said to desert tho sinking ship ghather mu diio affects rats is a question not yet settled by students of natural history As to the actual doings of a mouse whan listening to music it has been observed that the playing of a piano even the turn turn of a beginner learning his first tune will cause mice of the common house variety to run up and down behind the plaster of a house causing it to rattle in a way fit to disturb tho most earnest student one night half a dozen persons were gathered in the parlor of an adirondack home listening to n skilled player who as a woodsman eaid could make a planner talk when it was observed that the mice were acting in an unusual manner the ordinary conduct of mice when they hear piano music is to merely rattle the plaster but on this night they squeaked and squealed and rattled the plaster as they had never done before the rush of the rodents died away after the mu bic stopped but it was hours before tho last squeak was beard one of the human listeners was ft boy who had some little skill as a player and ho went frequently to the woods where with the aid of instrument he succeeded in calling chipmunks red squirrels and on one occasion a woodchuck besides wood mice including the deer mouse and the smaller birds the mice chiefly ran about the player with now and then a squeak but sometimes a low strain with slight modulations would seem to drive them insane and then without hesitation they would run over the player as if ho had been a stump the squirrels were less demonstrative |