124 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, v 



damage done by meadow-mice wherever the two 

 exist together. They also do great mischief by 

 killing young plants in grain-fields; and, soon 

 after the seed is sown, they destroy many of the 

 grains, little stores of which may be found col- 

 lected in shallow excavations. These are often 

 not eaten, and, germinating, astonish and scandal- 

 ize the farmer by the appearance of a thick clump 

 of plants where he thought he had sown his seed 

 quite uniformly. They also dig up grain that has 

 just sprouted ; and, by examining fields of young 

 wheat, oats, etc., spots will be seen where they 

 have dug down, guided by the growing blades, 

 and taken off the grain. In a nursery, where 

 apple-seeds were planted in autumn, I have ob- 

 served that, during fall and spring, so many of 

 the seeds were dug up by these mice as to leave 

 long gaps in the rows of seedlings, the empty 

 shells of the seeds being found lying about the 

 rows from which they had been taken. They 

 congregate in stacks of grain and hay, some- 

 times in exceedingly great numbers, destroying 

 all the lower parts by cutting galleries through 

 them in every direction. 



"The greatest mischief done by meadow-mice 

 is the gnawing of bark from fruit-trees. The 

 complaints are constant and grievous throughout 

 the Northern States of the destruction of orchard 

 and nursery trees by the various species of arvi- 

 colae. The entire damage done by them in this 

 way may be estimated, perhaps, at millions of 

 dollars. . . . This is especially the case at the 

 West, where no care is taken to protect the trees 

 against them, careless orchardists allowing grass 

 to grow about the roots of their fruit-trees, and 



