1896. J MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 427 



domestic remedies for the extermination of the mice, 

 besides which, with the assistance of the rural adminis- 

 tration, it was determined to poison mice witli Professor 

 Loeffler's cultivations of typhi murium, as prepared hy 

 the Odessa bacteriologic station and the Cherson bacteri- 

 ologic laboratory. This cultivation of typhi murium 

 shows its effect upon the numbers of mice not sooner 

 than three to four weeks after its use. In June, 1894, 

 the Department of Agriculture sent to the Province of 

 Cherson, Dr. Merezhkovski, the assistant of the mana- 

 ger of the bacteriologic laboratory of the department, 

 to carry out experiments of exterminating the mice by 

 means of the cultivation of the bacillus discovered by 

 him. The experiments carried out by him in the agri- 

 cultural school of the Cherson rural administration 

 gave good results, and in October they were extended to 

 the estate of G. L. Skadovski, a landowner, where they 

 were superintended by a special committee ; on the sixth 

 day, the mice began to perish of the cultivation of Dr. 

 Merezhkovski, and on the ninth day this attained con- 

 siderable dimensions and the mice were reduced to their 

 normal number. In April, 1895, the department sent 

 out bouillon with the cultivation of Dr. Merezhkovski, 

 but there are no reports as yet to hand concerning the 

 results. The United States Consul at Odessa adds that 

 when the army of mice swarmed over houses and huts 

 through the country, the dogs and cats refused to molest 

 them, and says '' An incident which came under my own 

 personal observation is not without interest. While I 

 was waiting for a train at a small station on a branch 

 line of the Southwestern Railway, a clergyman, with 

 very long hair and beard, who was walking up and 

 down the platform, stopped for a moment and raised the 

 end of a canvas which served as a cover for a larsre 

 quantity of wheat which was awaiting shipment. In an 

 instant a mass of mice sprang at him and his beard, hair 



