" The Plague of Mice" in Nova Scotia. 411 



in these contests, and when killed, their skins might be 

 found torn as the result. Boys sometimes caught them and 

 for their amusement set them fighting. They seemed 

 almost amphibious, readily taking to the water, and swim- 

 ming small streams. An intelligent man on the East River 

 of Pictou, told me that one of the places where they were 

 most abundant was an island in the river, though whether 

 this great increase was the result of migration or of the 

 rapid multiplication of those formerly on the island I am 

 unable to say. Cats, dogs, martens and foxes, gorged 

 themselves upon them to repletion, but with little apparent 

 diminution of their numbers. An old man, then a boy, 

 told me that, where he lived, a cat had kittens in an out- 

 house, and used to hunt for them at night. In the morning- 

 he used to amuse himself counting the number of mice she 

 would bring in, and on one occasion found it over 60. It 

 was noticed that the wild animals became very plenty, but 

 rather L should say were attracted from the woods by the 

 abundance of prey. One man told me that he has seen as 

 many as a dozen foxes on an intervale at one time. On 

 the other hand, the Hon. Samuel Creelman, of Stewiacke, 

 mentioned to me that in that settlement the domestic cats 

 assumed a ferile condition and multiplied so that the next 

 year they became a nuisance. They were so wild. that they 

 were a terror to children, and were hunted and killed in 

 great numbers. 



The hay crop was much damaged. The mice cut so 

 much of it that lay withered, that the scythe catching upon 

 it, would sometimes slide over the rest without cutting. 

 But it was when the grain began to ripen that their destruc- 

 tiveness became especially manifest. They then attacked 

 it in such numbers that all means were unavailing to arrest 

 their progress. Tbey have been known to cut down an 

 acre in three days, so that whole fields were destroyed in a 

 a short time. The jumping mice would spring at the ear 

 and thus bring it to the ground, but the others were in the 

 habit, as the country people expressed it, of junking it. 

 They would nip a stalk off a little above the ground, and if 

 instead of falling over, the end sank to the ground, leaving 



