94 WILD l.lFi: IN NK\V HK.U.AND. 



find shelter iii the has*- df tin- wheat-stacks, or tin- low pile of damp. 

 reeking bags of wheat awaiting reconditioning. Little if any 

 effort seems to be made by the labourers to cheek the pest in an 

 ordinary truck; and, indeed, a great deal of effort would be needed 

 to In- effect ive. and the reception and despatch of trucks must be 

 inevitably delayed. Only when a badly infested truck, smeared 

 with the Hour of mouse-gnaw n wheat, announces its contents by a 

 vile reek of rotting mouse an announcement bevoml all risk of 

 contradiction it is detached, hauled off to another track, and left 

 loaded to await special treatment ." 



Two methods are adopted in Victoria to cope with the pest in 

 the wheat-trains. One is to plug all the holes in the truck, place 

 a sack in each corner with its mouth propped open with an iron 

 hoop, and then proceed to lift the bags of wheat out of tin- truck 

 on to the stack. The escaping mice jump into the sacks until 

 they are nearly half-full. But if the mice are too numerous to 

 be dealt with in this way, then they are gassed in the truck. 

 I am not sure whether carbon disulphide or carbon dioxide is em- 

 ployed probably the former. This takes at least an hour, and 

 perhaps ten thousand mice are afterwards shovelled out of each 

 truck; and, as hundreds of trucks full of wheat were arrivint: at 

 Brooklyn each dav, it is easily seen that the plague certainly was 

 not staved. What happens at Brooklyn has been happening in 

 other parts of Australia, and we may be thankful that in New 

 Zealand we have no such <_ri'_ranf ic pests to cope \\ith. 



As the mouse breeds all the year round and produces five or 

 six young at a birth, its rapid increase under favourable circum- 

 stances is easily understood. 



Till) (Il'INK \-lMC (f'di'iet 



On the banks of the l?io de la Plata, and in the country lying 

 to the northwards, a little animal, considered by many naturalists 

 to be the wild form from which our doim-st icatcd guinea-pig is 

 derived, is found in thousands. It is known as tin- " resiles- 

 caw." It generallv lives in moist situations, usually near the 

 horder of the Forest, but never in the forest its,. If , j n the open 

 fields. Other authorities consider that the name " guineft-pig " i* 



Truption of (luiiina piu. and that tin- first specimens may have 

 come from that part .f America. The prevalent colours of the 



