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weed seeds. They also furnish food for a great many rapacious, 

 birds and mammals, such as hawks, owls, foxes, raccoons, opos- 

 sums, skunks, weasels and minks, which without the mice would 

 be forced to turn their attention more largely to useful song 

 and game birds or domestic fowls. So close an observer of wild 

 animals as Samuel N. Rhoads believes that no sufficient grounds 

 have yet been found to justify the destruction of the common 

 meadow mouse, but that the pine mice deserve to be killed. 



INSECT FOOD OF MICE. 



There may usually be found scattered about the nests and 

 along the trails of meadow mice a great many legs and wings 

 of grasshoppers, large beetles, and other insects. It is probable 

 that some of these insect remnants are the discarded portions 

 left by shrews, but I believe that meadow mice may also be 

 responsible for a part of them. In captivity they will pounce 

 upon, and greedily devour, almost any kind of insect that may 

 be placed in their cages. 



One meadow mouse that I kept in a cage ate, from October 

 24th, 4 p. m., to October 26th, 9 a. m., a period of 40 hours, 

 68 large white grubs, two crickets, nine large grasshoppers, and 

 46 grams of potato. The insects eaten weighed 49 grams. More 

 potatoes than the mouse could eat were kept in the cage during 

 the feeding test, but all the insects that were supplied were 

 eaten, and the mouse seemed to prefer them to the potato. 



This experiment was not carried on for a long enough time 

 to make it of much value, but the results are given for what 

 they are worth, as illustrating the fondness of mice for insect 

 food. 



"AZOA. (RAT VIRUS). " 



There has lately been placed on the market, by one of the 

 leading chemical manufacturing firms of the country, a new 

 kind of rat and mouse exterminator, called "Azoa (Rat Virus )." 

 The material is described by the manufacturers as follows: 



