Earlier quoted context omitted.
That introduction Haldane quote: > You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. "A horse splashes". That's some mental imagery right there.
Makes me wonder if a bunch of the world's smallest flightless mammal (a fraction of the house mouse's mass) were released at altitude, would they survive? (Not proposing that this be done but thought experiments and/or simulations): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_shrew
For them other than the cold a drop from 1000 metres is the same as a drop from 10 metres.