MICE. 93 



beach and in the dense bush, wherever we went, they were plentiful. 

 At the Hump, near Lake Hauroto, they were as numerous as else- 

 where. This prevalence of mice is certainly not usual; I have 

 been on the Hump four or five times since 1911, and last year 

 tramped along to the Knife and Steel, but, apart from an odd 

 one or two, no mice were in evidence on former trips. One notice- 

 able thing about these little creatures was their boldness : they 

 were evidently very hungry. The wekas caught many of them, 

 swallowing them whole, head first." 



How terrible a pest these rodents can be is shown by the state 

 of affairs which has prevailed in the wheat-growing districts of 

 Australia during the past season or two. The following note, 

 taken from the Melbourne Age of the 17th July, 1917, gives some 

 idea of the dimensions the pest has reached : "At Brooklyn there 

 are nearly seven million bags of wheat, forming three and a 

 half miles of stacks, and it is estimated that close on two million 

 bags have yet to be railed thither from country stations. At Spots- 

 wood three million bags, most from the 1915-16 crop, are stacked. 

 . The mouse plague in its myriads has attacked the Brooklyn 

 stacks. The very air reeks with the smell of the mice, dead and 

 alive. Daily to Brooklyn roll from seven hundred to eight hundred 

 railway-trucks, loaded at the country stations mainly in the mouse- 

 riddled areas of the Wimmera and the Mallee. From the Goulburn 

 Valley the trucks bring with them, it is observed, mice that are 

 few in comparison with those from the Wimmera and the Mallee. 

 Every truck from these two regions contributes its mice to the 

 swarming community at Brooklyn. And of the manner of the re- 

 ception of these mice the instances afforded on an inspection on a 

 week-day are at least suggestive. The average truck, when rolled 

 alongside the wheat-stacks, is received by a handful of labourers. 

 The bags are hauled up by tackle from truck to stack. When the 

 last bag is lifted the doors of the truck are thrown open, and the 

 chaff and the spoilt wheat broomed out. With the waste come flying 

 out the mice no great number in some trucks, but, clearly, on 

 the average delivery of trucks a day, adding hundreds of mice to 

 the post, which has bitten deeply into the stacks at Brooklyn. 

 Scattering, scampering, the mice race down the rails. A fox-terrier 

 or two, wearing a blase demeanour, condescend to catch a couple 

 of mice as an example to the others. The rest of the new arrivals 



