No. 380.] FALSE PREMISES IN ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY. 575 
bogs, and clearings, which are classed by the farmer as waste 
land or untillable meadow, and in these situations they consume 
almost nothing which would be utilized by the husbandman. 
6. 20 to 30 per cent. are found on upland soils. Of these, 
nearly all confine their foraging to neglected fence rows, aban- 
doned fields, weed patches, brush piles, rubbish, and litter, 
caused by that clog to American civilization, the shiftless 
farmer. In these situations the meadow mouse destroys noth- 
ing, but utilizes a great deal which otherwise would cumber the 
ground. 
7. The arable land of every well-kept and cultivated farm 
or nursery, whether in pasture, grass, grain, orchard, truck, or 
young trees, is practically deserted by this mouse. In short, 
it can only exist where a food supply is found in conjunction 
with proper shelter, a shelter in almost every instance synony- 
mous with neglect and waste on the part of the farmer and of 
utility on the part of the mouse. 
8. The meadow mouse rarely eats grain except when the 
rigors of exceptional winters deprive it of green food. It then 
confines its appetite to what is found on or in the ground, and 
which has been exposed by the farmer’s improvidence. It very 
rarely disturbs seeds, fruits, tubers, roots, or vegetables during 
the growing season and does little damage in winter to those 
buried in the ground, most of the ravages in these cases being 
the work of the short-tailed meadow mouse (Microtus pinetorum) 
and the white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus). 
9. On upland soils the meadow mouse is a surface feeder, 
forming its runways almost entirely above ground in the shelter 
of surrounding vegetation and débris. The burrowing of this 
Species is confined chiefly to easily worked, moist lowlands, 
where it conduces largely to better drainage and an increase of 
vegetable growth. 
To summarize the case briefly, it may be truly said that 
as a converter of waste vegetable matter into flesh-food for 
bird and beast the common meadow mouse has no rival in the 
regions it inhabits. Besides the numerous species of hawks 
and owls depending almost entirely on this mouse, other car- 
nivorous birds, as the crow, jay, shrike, and heron, devour a 
