350 REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



gift of song, with most musical, bird-like notes. It may be said also that some- 

 times the same ability is present in some of the house mice. 



The mice which do the greatest damage, however, in the country are the 

 redbacked mouse and the meadow mouse. Of these, the former is the smaller 

 and may be recognized by its chestnut color. It prefers the woods and clearings and 

 the vicinity of bogs, where they make their burrows just under the surface, and their 

 nest under some log and pile of bark. They feed on seeds, berries, and various 

 kinds of roots, and, during the winter, on the bark of shrubs and trees. The 

 writer found a very serious, though limited, case of damage by this mouse at 

 Paul Smith's, where they had been exceptionally plentiful during the winter, and 

 had attacked everything, including even some of the softwood trees. Within this area 

 they had stripped off all the bark from the larger exposed roots and from the trunk, 

 up to a height of about four feet. It is probable- that the presence of an 

 abundance of food from the hotel had originally attracted them, and then, not 

 finding enough food in the winter, they had attacked the trees. Along the roads 

 near the same place, there were many dead saplings, which were apparently the 

 results of the work of either this species or the meadow mouse. These were 

 usually girdled within a foot of the ground, and the marks of their sharp teeth 

 could be seen on the underlying wood. They were particularly partial to the 

 maple and ash; but beech, alder, and wild cherry were 'also attacked. This 

 meadow mouse is probably the most destructive of any ; for, not liking the deep 

 woods, he is fond of settling down in the meadows and pastures, where he lives 

 upon the roots of grasses and clover. Then in the winter he attacks the young 

 fruit trees in the nurseries and the shrubs around the farm, girdling them and 

 often killing them. During the summer they live in burrows; but when the ground 

 becomes frozen they abandon these and make a nest of dry grass upon the 

 surface of the ground, with runways going off in all directions. Soon the nest 

 is covered with snow, but the heat from the bodies of the mice soon melts a 

 dome-shaped chamber over the nest and from this they tunnel through the snow 

 in search of food. It is then that they do the damage to the trees, for the 

 snow enables them to work well up the trunks and at the same time protects 

 them from the weather. Usually they are not sufficiently numerous to attract very 

 much attention to their depredations; but occasionally, though rarely, they multiply 

 in such numbers that the damage is very extensive. Whether this abundance is 

 due to migrations or simply to conditions favoring unchecked reproduction is not 

 known. One of these conditions is the destruction of the birds and mammals 

 which prey upon the mice, and Merriam has these pertinent remarks concerning 

 this: "The amount of food consumed by a single individual is of course compara- 



