Mice: Thieves and Companions

4000 4000
46.00E32.01N
NAT

MESOPOTAMIA
	For about as long as anybody can remember, mice and men have been constant companions, though the relationship has not always been a happy one.
	The word "mouse," for example, illustrates both the antiquity and the adversarial relationship between man and mouse.  It comes from the ancient Indo-European language, Sanskrit, and means "thief."
	Mice are on the smaller end of the rodent family, which also includes rats, gerbils, lemmings and others.  And while there are several types of mice, including harvest mice, deer mice and grasshopper mice, the most commonly seen is the house mouse, which grows to about two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half inches long and lives almost everywhere in the world where there are people.
	Living up to the name of "thief," these little rodents steal their meals from people, eating grain, vegetables and meat, or even leather, glue and soap.
	But if house mice make their living from people, people also take advantage of mice, sometimes keeping them as pets or using them as subjects to test drugs or study behavior.