This member of the mouse-family is most disliked by farmers 

 because of his fondness for grain, especially corn. A favorite 

 habit of his is to make a permanent abode in a nest built in a stack 

 of corn and there to live at ease until some winter day he has a 

 rude awakening when the farmer's boy selects that particular shock 

 for the cattle's fodder. Another offense of which he is guilty is 

 eating the bark from trees and here again the farmer and he are at 

 odds, as he has a decided partiality for young fruit trees, and that 

 the barrenness of winter often forces him to this mischief is no fit- 

 ting apology in the eyes of the farmer. For further food supply he 

 must depend upon grasses, roots, seeds and small insects and, if 

 near the salt marshes, where he delights to dwell, he may find tiny 

 shellfish, well suited to his taste. 



His enemies, like his names, seem out of all keeping with his 

 apparent importance, but when we consider his destructive and pro- 

 lific nature, we are compelled to regard the number of his foes as 



168 



