ing heavy 

 the owners 

 tire block 

 houses in 

 ton was 

 this 



losses to 

 An en- 

 of small 

 Washing- 

 deserted for 

 cause, resulting 



.Photograph from U. S. Public Health Service 

 SNAP-TRAPS IN SURFACE SEWERS 



In New Orleans snap-traps were placed under the culverts in 

 the surface storm-water sewers. An observer will note that a mouse 

 or rat usually runs along the edge of a wall; therefore the trap is 

 placed against the wall and not at some distance from it. 



city had 50 dozen brooms, worth $2.50 a 

 dozen, destroyed, and another had S500 

 worth of fine china broken in a single 

 night. A harness dealer lost $400 worth 

 of horse collars in a season. Mail sacks 

 and other bags of all description have 

 holes cut in them, and ivory on shipboard 

 or on the docks is gnawed and its value 

 seriously reduced. 



In addition to the losses of foodstuffs 

 and merchandise, rats seriously injure 

 buildings, sometimes by burrowing and 

 persistent gnawing almost destroying the 

 foundations. They cut holes in the floors. 

 walls, doors, as well as in chests, ward- 

 robes, bookcases, and closets. 



Through rat infestation buildings are 

 sometimes rendered uninhabitable, fore- 

 ins: the tenants to abandon them and caus- 



in the loss of $2,000 

 in rents. Occasion- 

 ally a building is so 

 undermined and 

 weakened by these 

 pests that it must be 

 torn down. 



INCREDIBLE NUMBERS 

 IN AUSTRALIA 



House mice share a 

 world-wide distribu- 

 tion with rats, and, 

 while much smaller, 

 are to be included 

 with the rats as wast- 

 ers of food and de- 

 stroyers of other com- 

 modities. Occasion- 

 ally they increase in 

 numbers until they 

 rival the rats in their 

 destructiveness. Any 

 campaign for the sup- 

 pression of the rat 

 pest should, as a mat- 

 ter of course, include 

 house mice. 



The potentiality ex- 

 isting in these small 

 animals to cause great 

 losses of foodstuffs 

 is now being demonstrated in Victoria and 

 Xew South Wales, Australia, where dur- 

 ing the last few months a plague of mice 

 has developed. Enormous numbers of 

 mice have swarmed about huge stacks 

 containing millions of sacks of wheat, 

 riddling the sacks and causing the stacks 

 to collapse. 



The Melbourne Leader of May 26, 

 191 7, states that "in some centers the 

 ravages of mice are so great that huge 

 stacks erected some months ago now re- 

 semble heaps of debris." The President 

 of the Chamber of Agriculture estimated 

 that the loss might exceed £100,000. 



In Xew South Wales the Wheat Board 

 began a campaign against the mice by 

 double fence traps. The catch for two 

 nights in one place is reported to have 



