to India from the Mediterranean basin, and the Aryan, Semitic,
and Egyptian tribes on its coasts, we find that the mouse was the sacred
animal of Rudra. 'The mouse, Rudra, is thy beast,' says the Yajur Veda,
as rendered by Grohmann in his 'Apollo Smintheus.' Grohmann recognises
in Rudra a deity with most of the characteristics of Apollo. In later
Indian mythology, the mouse is an attribute of Ganeca, who, like Apollo
Smintheus, is represented in art with his foot upon a mouse.

Such are the chief appearances of the mouse in ancient religion. If he
really was a Semitic totem, it may, perhaps, be argued that his
prevalence in connection with Apollo is the result of a Semitic leaven in
Hellenism. Hellenic invaders may have found Semitic mouse-tribes at
home, and incorporated the alien stock deity with their own
Apollo-worship. In that case the mouse, while still originally a totem,
would not be an Aryan totem. But probably the myths and rites of the
mouse, and their diffusion, are more plausibly explained on our theory
than on that of De Gubernatis: 'The Pagan sun-god crushes under his foot
the Mouse of Night. When the cat's away, the mice may play; the shadows
of night dance when the moon is absent.' {117a} This is one of the
quaintest pieces of mythological logic. Obviously, when the cat (the
moon) is away, the mice (the shadows) _cannot_ play: there is no light to
produce a shadow. As usually chances, the scholars who try to resolve
all the features of myth into physical phenomena do not agree among
themselves about the mouse. While the mouse is the night, according to
M. de Gubernatis, in Grohmann's opinion the mouse is the lightning. He
argues that the lightning was originally regarded by the Aryan race as
the 'flashing tooth of a beast,' especially of a mouse. Afterwards men
came to identify the beast with his teeth, and, behold, the lightning and
the mouse are convertible mythical terms! Now it is perfectly true that
savages regard many elemental phenomena, from eclipses to the rainbow, as
the result of the action of animals. The rainbow is a serpent; {117b}
thunder is caused by the thunder-bird, who has actually been shot in
Dacotah, and who is familiar to the Zulus; while rain is the milk of a
heavenly cow--an idea recurring in the 'Zend Avesta.' But it does not
follow because savages believe in these meteorological beasts that all
the beasts in myth were originally meteorological. Man raised a se