98 MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 



of nearly two-thirds of the eastern species of hawks and owls which appear 

 on their rolls of honor. The rough-leg hawk is accorded first place on this 

 list because he eats almost nothing else but meadow mice of this species. 

 But it is a stubborn fact that the case of the meadow mouse has never been 

 proved against him. Not a tithe of the study devoted to his devourers has 

 been given to him, and no scientific analysis of his stomach contents or food 

 habits has yet been put on record. His plea of ' not guilty^ stands good so 

 far as the records of economic zoology are concerned. This may sound pre- 

 posterous to every reader of the statement, but it is undeniable, and not more 

 difficult to believe, after we have inquired into the facts of the case, than the 

 conclusions of the modem zoologist regarding some of our hawks and owls. 

 ' Of course, meadow mice live almost wholly on vegetable food, the grasses 

 and grains of the farm, and that settles it.' So retort the great majority, and 

 until a very recent period the writer had thoughtlessly been one of that num- 

 ber. As a farmer, I have had ten years' acquaintance with the habits of the 

 meadow mouse in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and as a zoologist, have 

 made about six years' study of the same animal in ten eastern states. In 

 that time about a thousand specimens have been secured and examined, and 

 four hundred preserved for study. Without going into details, the following 

 is a summary of ray conclusions as to the economic status of this species, the 

 common meadow mouse, Microtus pejinsylvanicus of Ord : 



"i. From 90 to 100 per cent, of the food of this mouse throughout the 

 year is vegetable, of which 60 to 80 per cent, consists of endogenous plants, 

 chiefly grasses; 15 to 30 per cent, consists of exogenous plants, chiefly 

 weeds ; 5 to 10 per cent, consists of tubers and roots ; and i to 5 per cent, 

 consists of grain and seeds. 



" 2. From I to 5 per cent, of its diet consists of animal matter such as 

 other meadow mice, and the remains of dead animals. 



"3. Its vegetable food the year round is largely made up of 'grasses, "^ 

 popularly so called, and during the summer season several species of native 

 and introduced weeds form a considerable share of its diet. 



"4. Its destruction of grasses at all seasons is" confined largely, and in the 

 majority of cases almost exclusively, to the rushes (y///zr/«), sedges {Carex), 

 salt grass {Spartina), Indian grass (Andro/>ogon), send other coarse forms 

 which have little or no agricultural value and are rejected by stock either as 

 hay or pasturage. 



"5. 70 to 80 per cent, of the whole number of meadow mice in any given 

 area restrict their habitat to low, moist soils, bogs, and clearings, which are 

 classed by the farmer as waste land or untillable meadow, and in these situa- 

 tions they consume almost nothing which would be utilized by the husband- 

 man. 



" 6. 20 to 30 per cent, are found on upland soils. Of these, nearly all 



