Field-Mice. 



113 



In the nurseries in Northern Illinois, I have seen whole rows of young 

 apple-trees stripped of their bark for a foot or two above the ground. 

 Thousands of fruit-trees, as well as evergreens and other ornamental trees 

 and shrubs, are at times thus killed in a nursery in one winter. The mice 

 are most mischievous in winters of deep snow. It is usually thought that 

 they only gnaw bark when no other food is to be obtained ; but it is more 

 probable that this is palatable to them at all times. Confined specimens, 

 while abundantly supplied with food of all kinds, ate the bark from twigs 

 placed in their cage. One reason why fruit-trees are most girdled in times 

 of deep snow is, that the meadow-mice can then best move about at a dis- 

 tance from their burrows, being protected by the snow, under which they 

 construct numerous pathways, and are thus enabled to travel comfortably 

 in search of food, always to be obtained in abundance where there is any 

 kind of perennial grass or the seeds of annual plants. Aided by the snow, 



THE WOOD-MOUSE (,A . pinetoruni). 



too, they climb up the sides of the trees to gnaw the bark at a consider- 

 able height from the ground. Rabbits are often accused of gnawing the 



"S 



