Not dangerous like the skunk, or brave like the raccoon, or big like the bear, the least of the Sleepers is the best-looking of them all. Shy and solitary, the gentle little jumping mouse is as dainty as he looks. His fur is lead, overlaid with gold deepening to a dark brown on the back, and like the deer-mouse he wears a snowy silk waistcoat and stockings. His strength is in his powerful crooked hind-legs, and his length in his silky tail, which occupies five of his eight inches. Given one jump ahead of any foe that runs, springs, flies, or crawls, and Mr. Jumping Mouse is safe. He patters through the grass by the edge of thickets and weed-patches, like any other mouse, until alarmed. Then with a bound he shoots high into the air, in a leap that will cover from two to twelve feet. It is in this that his long tail plays its part. In a graceful curve, with tip upturned, it balances and guides him through the air in a jump which will cover over forty times his own length, equivalent to a performance of two hundred and forty feet by a human jumper. The instant he strikes, the jumper soars away again like a bird, at right angles to his first jump, and zigzags here and there through the air, so fast and so far as to baffle even the swift hawk and the dogged weasel. Every day Mr. Jumping Mouse washes and polishes his immaculate self, and draws his long silky tail through his mouth until every hair shines. Mrs. Jumping Mouse is a good mother, and never deserts her babies. If alarmed while feeding them, she will spring through the air with from three to five of them clinging to her for dear life, and carry them safely through all her series of lofty leaps. The first frost rings the bed-time bell for the jumping mouse. Three feet underground he builds a round nest of dried grass, and lines it with feathers, hair, and down. Then he rolls himself into a round bundle, which he ties up with two wraps of his long tail, and goes to sleep until spring. Of all the Sleepers he is the soundest. Dig him up and he shows no sign of life; but if brought in to a fire, he wakes up and becomes his own lively self once more. Put him out in the cold, and he rolls up and falls asleep again.