474 Canadian Record of Science. 



its crop. Still I believe that the mice could not have 

 been as destructive as where the new-comers were.* 



Of the visitation in Eastern Nova Scotia, in 1815, com- 

 monly known there as "the year of the mice," we possess 

 fuller information. The Rev. Hugh Graham, then minister- 

 ing in Stewiacke, thus writes to a friend in Scotland, under 

 date 21st July of that year : 



"This last winter was the coldest that ever I saw. The 

 spring was also very cold and late. Appearances are now 

 promising, only the field mice have become so numerous as 

 to threaten the destruction of a great part of the crop. We 

 have not had such a visitation for more than forty years past. 

 They began to multiply last year, and did some damage." 



The next year he writes under date, August 1 : 



" The plague of the mice is so far removed, that there is 

 scarcely a mouse to be seen in house or field, or the woods, 

 where they swarmed. But we feel the effects of it still. 

 The grass, as well as grain, being greatly cut off, the farm- 

 ers had to sell off a great part of their stock at low prices 

 before winter, to bring their stock to their provender. But 

 the winter was severe, and the spring uncommonly cold and 

 late, which occasioned a great mortality in the remainder of 

 their stock. And now breadstuffs have to be brought from 

 afar, and at a high price, and many are very straitened as to 

 the means." 



This is the only contemporary record I possess of this 

 visitation, but some years ago I made enquiries on the sub- 

 ject of persons who remembered it, and recently I have con- 

 versed with persons still alive, who though advanced in 

 years are still, from recollection, able to give an intelligent 

 account of it. These all agree in their testimony as to the 

 main facts, and if they vary slightly in the details, these 

 variations represent the differences which existed at differ- 

 ent places. From these sources I am able to furnish the 

 following particulars : — 



1. The area of their ravages. — This included, we may say, 



* It is probable that it was from some visitation of this kind that 

 they gave the name Souris to a harbour about twenty- five miles 

 to the North-East. 



