278 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



forms the simplest and most effective means of keeping down their 

 abundance." 13 



Four subspecies in captivity (P. leucopus novel) or acensis, P. niani- 

 culatus bairdi, P. m. gracilis and P. m. sonoriensis) all accepted the 

 same sorts of foods, including 52 kinds of native seeds, fruits and 

 nuts, besides seeds of some cultivated plants, green vegetation, bark 

 of 15 species of trees and shrubs, and 15 species of insects. 14 "Salt 

 pork and oatmeal were attractive bait" for the desert white-footed 

 mouse (P. eremicus). 15 The Osgood white-footed mice (P. maniculatus 

 osgdodi) "were feeding largely on bullberries," but took also "seeds 

 of chokecherry, woodbine, wild grape, smilax, buffalo berry, hosackia, 

 dogwood, bindweed, knotweed, pigweed, ragweed, Russian thistle, 

 black henbane, sedge, barnyard grass and dropseed grass. The mice 

 seem fond of any kind of camp food, as flour, meal, oatmeal, grain, 

 meat, butter, bread or crackers." 16 Sixteen Baird white-footed mice 

 (P. m. bairdi) were caught in traps in one night while feeding on 

 cockleburs; many others were caught while eating seeds of tumble- 

 weeds and Russian thistles, and at one place they were found to be 

 "feeding largely on little caterpillars." 17 The food of Northern white- 

 footed mice (P. I. no'ueb or acensis) is mostly "seeds, grain and nut- 

 lets . . . fond of berries and fruit . . . get into fields, gardens, granaries, 

 and even cellars and pantries, and help themselves." 18 They are "es- 

 pecially fond of basswood seeds, pits of wild cherries, beechnuts and 

 acorns." 13 There were found "within a stump in a clover field, several 

 quarts of clean seed of red clover collected by a family of these mice." 20 

 One in captivity killed an adult gartersnake. 21 



Tawny white-footed mouse (P. maniculatus rufinus) : most of the 

 stomachs examined contained seeds of small plants and remains of 

 grasshoppers. 22 Chihuahua white-footed mouse (P. m. blandus) : seeds 

 of Gutierrezia and Crassina furnish a large share of its winter food. 28 

 "Largely carnivorous, devouring insects or any animal food," and 



13 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, pp. 76, 78, 1926. Osgood, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 

 28, p. 28, 1909. 



14 Cogshall, Food habits of deer mice of the genus Peromyscus in captivity, Journ. 

 Mammalogy, ix, 217-221, 1928. 



15 Mearns, U. S. Natl. Museum, Bull. No. 56, p. 441, 1907. 



16 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, p. 75, 1926. 



17 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, pp. 76-77, 1926. 



18 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 49, p. 78, 1926. 



19 Osgood, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 28, p. 27, 1909. 



20 Kennicott, Agric. Rept. for 1856, U. S. Patent Office, p. 91, 1857. 



21 Hatt, Notes on some captive deer mice, Journ. Mammalogy, rv, 186-187, 1923. 



22 Merriam, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 3, p. 64, 1890. 

 28 Bailey, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 25, p. 97, 1905. 



