PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 153 
loads of wheat. From then, I think, it was just a multi- 
plication sum. I do not believe the theory that the mice 
eame from Central Australia—our Ouyen-Pinnaroo line 
was the least, and last, to be affected, and it should, under 
these circumstances, have been the first. Also, there was no 
mice plague where there was no wheat. There are still 
(February, 1918) mice in Northern Victoria, but at present 
there is no anxiety.’’ 
As regards the number of mice, Mr. England caught some 
36 million in Victoria late in the season, and the Wheat 
Inspector agreed that twice as many could have been caught 
earlier. There would be quite as many mice on farms as 
in the railway wheat stacks. In South Australia the mice - 
seemed to be thicker, and to do more damage, reducing the 
stacks to heaps, whilst in Victoria they still retained the 
semblance of stacks. He gathered also that New South 
Wales was worse affected than Victoria. Some reckoned 
the damage done in Victoria as £500,000, and more in the 
other affected States, whilst, in addition, was the damage 
to farmers’ property. 
As regards migration, he says: ‘‘I found the mice very 
local in their habits when once near food. The only migra- 
tion then appeared to be to and from the stacks, though 
certainly at night they were all over the roads, and were 
scattered by motor cars. The mallee scrub was full of 
them, and they apparently fed on the leaves and bark.’’ 
‘ 
Mr. England says “‘nearly all’’ the mice appeared to be 
the ordinary house mouse, brownish-grey and whitish un- 
derneath, in size about 24 inches long, and the tail upwards 
of 3 inches. Many young mice no bigger than walnuts were 
caught, though there was a popular idea that the mice were 
all adults. The young mice were especially active, and in 
spite of supposed inexperience very elusive and hard to 
eatch, which might account for this fallacy. Occasional 
