i&i MAMMALS OF iiEfliNSYLVAftiA AMB *fEW JMfeSEV. 



Habits, ^A:*— ^What thd eotrittioh tn^adoW tflause does s6 largely above 

 ground this streiitlous cdUsin Jietfoi'titiS betleath the stirfebe* Uilfortutiately 

 ibt mABkiiid 4ttd foftUAateiy for hitiiself, the pine Vole is Otte &f the " hidden 

 WOtks of darkness." Gut of si|ht is OUt of itiindj atid, ili liiOSt eaSes, <3lit df 

 Knowledge. Thus it Was that the jjdjJuldr diid Still petsistlht etrqf afose 6f 

 attribiitihg the mysterious Underground tobbefies which yearly spitit away 

 thdUSartds of dollars' Worth of seeds, gifaihj tadical and tuberous-haoted Vege- 

 tabiei, plant toots, bafk of frtiit and Shade ttees, bulbs and buried Wihtei- 

 Stoi^es belonging to the fai-tnets of southern N. J; and Pa., to moles, shfeWs, 

 WeadoW mice, insects, bifdsj in shoftj anything «vhich the vexed ingenuity of 

 man coUld devise as a seape-goati On the tJ-act whete 1 now reside at Au- 

 dlibott, Camden COi, N; J., thefe might be fOilttd in d nat-row belt dloJig the 

 banks of a stream, and in the old unmowed fields Comptising about %o of the 

 whole i25 aetes, certain spots where meadow Miee, M^ ptttnsyliiAnkUi, were 



tommoh. these would not aggregate joo specihiens, and if the ground had 

 been mowed the number would be diminished mOte thah half. Ott the fe- 

 Mainder ptactically nO meadoW mice exists But the entire soil of this ti:act 

 of ground, regirdleSS of its cdttditloni whether sod, fallOWj orchard or Wood, 

 is traversed mote or less intridfttely With the burroWS Of the pine Woods vole. 

 In my garden of 2 acres they so abound that, after irrigatioflj their net-work 

 of runways, eolldpsed by the Water, are mostly remodeled before it has Jiad 

 time to reach the subsoil, and a spade- full of earth thrown out at random 

 seldom fails to reveal one of their burrows or that of a mole, which both use 

 promiscuously. In this garden not a meadow mouse cares to set foot in 

 summer, yet these cousins of his destrojr at least 20 per centi of the seeds 

 planted and 10 to 15 per cent, of the growing and perfected potatoes, beets, 

 parsnips, celery, cabbages ahd Juta baga turnips^. They destroyed a whole 

 planting of lima beans after growing in some cases to the height of eight 

 inches, many replanted hills being eaten dff three times. In the orchard 

 Where meadow mice could not e*ist, these burrowing rasdals have dompletely 

 denuded the entire basal system of roots where they diverge underground 

 from the parent trunk, in this way killing in 2 years apple trees 15 and 20 

 years old. 



It would make easy ealoulation, on the basis of the experience of any truck 

 gardener in south Jersey (for my own experience is a fair sample, as I have 

 known while working on other farms and frOm the complaints of my neigh- 

 bors) to show that this mouse destroys many times more value than all the 

 hoxiOus birds and mammals (the English sparrow excepted) put together. 

 To make the identification of this Vole more certain, I will quote from a 

 paper published by me in 1897 in a local weekly. This paper answers a 

 southern correspondent Who had confounded the depredations done by this 

 mouse in her garden with those of the short^tailed shrew or mole shrew, 



