" TJie Plague of Mice " in Nova Scotia. 473 



they ravage the land, they precipitate themselves into the 

 sea." There is no evidence of any such regularity in the 

 visitation of mice, but later writers speak of it as occurring 

 on Prince Edward Island at longer or shorter intervals, and 

 on the main land it has not been unknown. We have, 

 however, authentic information of two instances of the kind, 

 one in Prince Edward Island, in the year 1*775, and the 

 other in Nova Scotia, in the year 1815. I do not know 

 that in either case the facts were noted by any scientific 

 observer. It may therefore be of interest, and also render 

 some service to science, to gather up what information we 

 can obtain regarding these rather remarkable events, from 

 men of ordinary intelligence, who were witnesses of them. 



The former of these visitations is now only a matter of 

 tradition, but some years ago I conversed with aged per- 

 sons, who in early years had passed through the troubles of 

 that period, and from them gleaned the following particu- 

 lars. In the year 1774 a number of families emigrated 

 from Dumfries or its neighbourhood, in the south of Scot- 

 land, and commenced a settlement at Georgetown, or Three 

 Eivers, as it was called, They raised some crop that season, 

 and, if my memory serves me right, in autumn they found 

 the mice a little troublesome. But at all events, the next 

 season they swarmed in such numbers as to become a real 

 plague. They consumed all the crop, even the potatoes in 

 the ground. They boldly entered the dwellings of the 

 settlers, and, when they could get no other food, they even 

 gnawed the leather in the binding of books. 



The consequence of this was that the settlers were 

 brought to the verge of starvation, and would undoubtedly 

 have perished but for a French settlement at some distance, 

 from which they received supplies of potatoes. What that 

 settlement was, and its distance from the place where they 

 were located, I have not ascertained. But from their being 

 able to save their crop of potatoes at least, I would be dis- 

 posed to conclude that the mice had not reached them, and 

 that the plague was, therefore, of very limited area. But 

 the French settlement was much older, and had much more 

 land under cultivation, and thus might have saved a part of 

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