228 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
skinned, and it is no doubt serviceable in rooting, 
and in crowding through the loose earth in which 
the animal sometimes hastily buries itself; but that 
it is used for rooting or boring, woodcock-fashion, 
after subterranean insects, I am not otherwise in- 
formed. The number of insects a single one will 
destroy, between his appetite and his love of play, 
is enormous; and almost every one of them is 
injurious to grain, vegetable, or fruit crops. Of so 
much value to the hop-grower in particular are 
his services, that efforts were made some years 
ago in New York State to have him brought under 
protection of the game-laws. The facts brought 
forward then (and since) show that his value in 
ridding fields, gardens, and granaries of vermin 
compensated, a hundred times over, the occasional 
harm he does in the poultry-yard; but the preju- 
dices of short-sighted farmers and the opposi- 
tion of the fur-trappers defeated this beneficent 
measure. 
Next to insects he probably pursues mice with 
the greatest avidity and success. The enormous 
destruction of planted seeds, growing and ripening 
vegetables and grain, as well as of stored grain, 
accomplished by wild mice, in all parts of the 
country, is well known to agriculturists, who ought 
to welcome, rather than do their best to extirpate, 
the natural enemies of these persistent and rapidly 
multiplying pests. The mice alone do more dam- 
age to the grain and fruit growing interests of 
