228 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 



skinned, and it is no doubt serviceable in rooting, 

 and in crowding through the loose earth in which 

 the animal sometimes hastily buries itself ; but that 

 it is used for rooting or boring, woodcock-fashion, 

 after subterranean insects, I am not otherwise in- 

 formed. The number of insects a single one will 

 destroy, between his appetite and his love of play, 

 is enormous ; and almost every one of them is 

 injurious to grain, vegetable, or fruit crops. Of so 

 much value to the hop-grower in particular are 

 his services, that efforts were made some years 

 ago in New York State to have him brought under 

 protection of the game-laws. The facts brought 

 forward then (and since) show that his value in 

 ridding fields, gardens, and granaries of vermin 

 compensated, a hundred times over, the occasional 

 harm he does in the poultry-yard; but the preju- 

 dices of short-sighted farmers and the opposi- 

 tion of the fur-trapper^ defeated this beneficent 

 measure. 



Next to insects he probably pursues mice with 

 the greatest avidity and success. The enormous 

 destruction of planted seeds, growing and ripening 

 vegetables and grain, as well as of stored grain, 

 accomplished by wild mice, in all parts of the 

 country, is well known to agriculturists, who ought 

 to welcome, rather than do their best to extirpate, 

 the natural enemies of these persistent and rapidly 

 multiplying pests. The mice alone do more dam- 

 age to the grain and fruit growing interests of 



