274 MAMMALIA 



ascertained. Fortunately, they generally recur at long intervals. 

 Arboreous vegetation suffers most during winters of deep snow, the 

 snow enabling the Mice to reach the bark at a considerable height, 

 and at the same time protecting them from the inclemencies of the 

 weather. I have seen fruit trees, and also saplings of the maple and 

 beech, more or less completely girdled to the height of four and even 

 five feet (1.21 to i.52 metres). During the winter of 1868 or 1869 

 thousands of young trees were destroyed in Lewis County alone. 



In places where corn or grain is allowed to stand in shocks for any 

 length of time, large losses are occasioned by the Mice. The amount 

 of food consumed by a single individual is of course comparatively 

 insignificant, but that required to sustain the total number inhabiting 

 a criven district is not to be io-nored. And when it is borne in mind 



o o 



that the food of this species consists almost exclusively of the produce 

 of the agriculturist, the fact becomes evident that the animal is a 



o 



source of continuous pecuniary loss to the farmer. Omitting reference 

 to the years when the species is present in excessive numbers, it is a low 

 estimate to say that twenty-five Mice live upon every acre of meadow 

 land. Hence the total number present upon an ordinarily productive 

 farm of two hundred acres would not be less than five thousand. 

 Now suppose that the owner of a farm of this size should capture and 

 keep in confinement five thousand Meadow Mice, feeding them upon 

 their natural food, grain and the roots of grass. Would it be strange 

 if, in the course of a few months, he should become so alarmed at 

 the cost in dollars and cents, of keeping such a host of these ravenous 

 creatures that he should have them all put to death ? And yet, our 

 farmers not only look on in stolid indifference while their property 

 and the fruits of their labors suffer, from this source, annual losses 

 which they can ill afford to bear, but they even help the Mice to in- 

 crease in numbers and maintain supremacy over their fields ! This 

 they do in several ways, chiefly by neglecting measures for the rid- 

 dance of the Mice, and, what is of vastly more consequence, by en- 

 couraging the destruction of those birds and mammals that habitually 



