Mice all over

I found this fascinating. It describes experiments with lab mice running mazes. Several photos of mice and sketches of mazes & experiments are included. I originally got this book to research a sci-fi story I was writing in which the mice got as smart as people. Never got it published, but I learned something in the process.

In 1951, the British government asked Peter Crowcroft to study the behaviour of wild mice in grain stores. In response to the Cold War, the government had secretly amassed warehouses full of wheat -- but now mice were nibbling away at these hoards, and traditional methods of poisoning hadn't helped. The government hoped that learning more about mouse behaviour would lead to more effective ways of controlling them. (The public, unaware of the real purpose of the mouse studies, bombarded Whitehall with letters complaining about this frivolous use of taxpayers' money.) Crowcroft set up a 'mouse paradise' in a disused RAF bombing trainer, caught his mice in local corn-ricks and began observing them. What he found was a surprise. Instead of being timid and passive like their laboratory-bred cousins, wild mice fought fiercely for their territories and enforced a strict social hierarchy. Crowcroft's book is lively and often funny. All the data you would expect in a serious scientific study is here, but Crowcroft avoids and mocks scientific jargon: 'No mouse was encountered which was bold enough (sorry, "whose exploratory drive was sufficiently highly motivated")...'. He never anthropomorphises the mice, but he describes individuals so thoroughly and sympathetically that the accidental death of one mouse comes as a genuine shock. As a sentimental bonus, the method that Crowcroft finally concluded would be best for controlling mice did not involve killing them. Sadly, his suggestion wasn't adopted because warehouse workers thought it was impractical. Unfortunately, this little gem is long out of print. It occurred to me that it's exactly the sort of book Dover Publications was designed to rescue, so I've used the form on Dover's web page to suggest that they reprint it. I'd encourage anyone else who loves the book to do the same.

Peter Crowcroft's study of mouse behavior is both witty and deeply learned, and it will appeal to both academic and popular audiences. Anyone interested in mice--as pets, as objects of scientific study, or as both of the above--will enjoy reading about Crowcroft's determination, and ultimate success, in setting up his experimental "mouse houses" and in designing social experiments with his homegrown mouse communities. Crowcroft's writing style is lucid and his interest in his subject is contagious. Readers will come away from his text with a deeper appreciation of these small but highly complex creatures.