No. 380.] FALSE PREMISES IN ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY. 577 
On page 219 I find his first specific arraignment of the 
meadow mouse, a bit of information wholly lacking in the work 
of which the doctor’s later article was a summary. After men- 
tioning that America is free of the devastating hordes of lem- 
mings which sometimes overrun northern Europe, Dr. Fisher 
says : “The vole or meadow mouse is common in many parts of 
this country, and is, east of the Mississippi River, without doubt 
the most destructive mammal to agriculture. It destroys 
meadows by tunneling under them, and eating the roots of 
grass. .. . This mouse also destroys grain and various kinds 
of vegetables, especially tubers, but probably does even more 
damage by girdling young fruit trees.” There can be no 
doubt that Dr. Fisher refers primarily to the same species that 
I have been defending. The injustice of these accusations, as 
stated, is the more to be deplored, coming as they do from a 
scientist whose authority is taken as final by a large class of 
people. This fact, however, should never be construed as a 
point against the value of hawks and owls and other animals 
in preventing a vole plague in America. It only indicates that 
economic zodlogy is in its infancy, and shows the danger of 
allowing a greater truth to distort the lesser. Four years 
have elapsed since Dr. Fisher made his statement, — ample 
time for the officers of his bureau to have discovered that the 
greater part of the real damage done to vegetation by cutting 
of grass roots, eating of vegetables, seeds, and grain, and the 
girdling of young trees, is the work of another member of the 
vole family, the mole-like, short-tailed, rusty-backed pine mouse 
(Microtus pinetorum). The name mole mouse would better fit 
this energetic little burrower on whose shoulders rests the onus 
of most of the sins which we have unwittingly charged to the 
meadow mouse and the mole. 
An hereditary prejudice may become an instinct stronger than 
our desire for scientific truth. One of the most popular and tena- 
cious fallacies is the human hatred of reptiles and the desire 
for their wholesale extermination as noxious animals. The 
Same remark will apply in large measure to skunks, minks, and 
weasels. Without being precise, it may be safely asserted that 
one-half of the food of our east American snakes consists of 
