Procedure:

              We obtained ten white mice bred in captivity.  These mice were placed in a metal cage measuring about 40 by 70 and 25cm high.  The mice were given standard food and water without restrictions.  In order to get wild mice, we trapped twice for mice using Sherman traps on fair weather nights.  Two different locations were trapped, the biology pond and around the soccer fields.  On the first day of trapping, two mice were obtained and on the second four mice were caught.  Both the wild and white mice were used to run the experiment.  The testing was done in a wide plastic container with an open top.  Its bottom was partitioned into three sections, a third was covered with soil, another third was covered with dried leaves, and the last third was filled with pieces of wood to simulate shelter.

            The mice were introduced to the test arena the same day the experiment was run.  We took the mice out of their cage or the Sherman trap and tested each individually for the entire experiment.  They were placed in the arena for about 4 minutes for habituation to the test conditions.  The acclimation was necessary in order to reduce stress before running the experiment.  Each mouse was tested only once.  During the testing, the other mice were kept in a separate area to prevent them from hearing the sounds.  Each mice placed in the test arena was exposed to different noises for about 1 minute. We observed the mice’s reaction to a Barred owl, an American robin, and a controlled call, which was white noise and use as a neutral stimulus.  The order of the calls was played in a random order so that it would not affect the results.  Two minutes of quiet was observed between calls.  This silence provided the mice with an opportunity to habituate to the test set-up and separate in time the effect of owl calls.  We made observations of each behavior and jotted down our findings.  Observations were categorized into active searching, freezing, and hiding (running to shelter).