The song to which the little creature gave utterance again and again in our full view was as sweet and varied as the warbling of any bird. It most resembled that of the canary, but the melody of the nightingale was occasionally introduced. Every note was as clear and distinct, but withal so soft, so gentle, tender and pianissimo, that I can only compare it to the voice of a bird muffled by being heard through a down pillow. In the room was a canary, whose cage was suspended in one of the windows. He had settled himself to roost, and his head was under his wing, but at the sound of “Nicodemus’” serenade he awoke, and, listening attentively, and fantastically leaning alternately to right and left, peeped curiously down to the floor. I learned that the mouse and bird were intimately acquainted with each other, and that the former frequently visited his feather friend and stayed to supper. Accordingly, while we looked on with pleasure, “Nicodemus” climbed up the drawn curtains, entered the bird’s cage, and partook of the seed–the canary showing no symptom of disapprobation or disturbance, but merely from his perch peeping down on his visitor in a ludicrously quaint and odd manner. During his supper time, “Nicodemus” obliged us from the cage with several repetitions from his song, “The Chirper,” down below on the carpet, occasionally coming in with a monotonous contralto accompaniment, and sometimes emitting a sound like the squeaking of a corkscrew through a cork. The two little songsters, having done their best to please us, were rewarded with all that mice could wish for as components of a feast, and after selecting the portions they severally preferred, gracefully retired.–Popular Science Monthly.
This probably wasn’t an Alston’s Singing Mouse (Scotinomys teguina). Accounts of singing mice are not rare, according to a contemporary edition of The Great Round World
His singing mouse was a deer or white-foot mouse. This mouse is found all over the United States, and while several other kinds are known to sing, the deer-mouse is the sweetest of the singers.
but I have never heard one to my knowledge. But maybe it’s those odd sounds we hear and say “What’s that bird?”
Here’s a later article about a singing mouse from Time Magazine.
Franz Kafka wrote a tale of Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk in his story The Hunger Artist.