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Description:
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One night last week, about 3:30 a.m., I was woken out of a deep sleep by a sound β a sound at once familiar, infuriating, and implacable. I knew instantly what it was, and what I would have to do, and I was already sorry. The sound was indisputably that of gnawing, a sound made by little sharp teeth, carving out a little nest for itself among the studs and cellulose insulation behind our bedroom wall, a sound somehow amplified by the very structure of the wall itself. I should not have been surprised by the sound; in fact I should have expected it, for after all, this is the time of the year when they start to come inside, drawn by the warmth of our house and the protection it provides. They settle in, living up to both their Latin and English name: Mus domesticus , the house mouse. Few animals live up to their name as thoroughly as the common house mouse. Though originally wild, it is universally described as living βin or near human structures.β It has literally domesticated itself, |