Tllh: MLI lO-CKASS iMOI'SK. 



515 



ill ilw, fields, iIkm'c is oFlcii ()|)(Miiii<;' lici'c mid llici'c. Willi iha ^rass 

 blades near it clipped (dose to the t^rouiid. Sonietimcs in walking 

 quietly through the woods you may hear a dead leaf rustle as 

 though moved by the wind. If you look quickly and keenly toward 

 it you may distinguish a brown head, set with two tiny, bead-like 

 eyes, disappearing into a hole under the leaves. If you examine 

 the place closely you will ])r()bably find the entrance to the labyrin- 

 thian tunnels of these mice and very likely you can also find where 

 the animal has been cutting the stem of a green violet or some 

 other tender plant. ' 



The nest is always placed under ground or under an old stump 

 or log and is made of fine, dry grass, root fibers or leaves. All 

 the breeding females that I have seen had two, three or four 

 young, and as they have but four teats the latter number would 

 seem to be the maximum for the species. 



Economic status. — This is the most destructive of our native 

 mice and it is the greater pest because it is not often seen and is 

 almost unknow^n to the farmer. iMost often it is the species guilty 

 of throwing up the dirt into the bases of wdieat and corn shocks, 

 and coming up through a small, obscure hole to eat the grain. It 

 may not be the only offender in this respect, but it is quite agile 

 in escaping into its runway while the other voles and the white- 

 footed mice often run away on top of the ground. 



The injury which this species does in orchards has already been - 

 referred to. I have also known them to eat sweet potatoes and 

 white potatoes from the rows, and to follow along corn rows and 

 eat the sprouting grains. 



Since they live in cultivated fields and under ground, they 

 can not be driven away by keeping down weeds and grass, al- 

 though they are not as abundant in a clean field as in one over- 

 grown with weeds and bushes. They can be trapped if some care 

 is taken to find openings which they themselves have made from 

 their tunnels. If the latter are dug open, a trap placed in them 

 is apt to be pushed aside or covered with dirt. Strychnine or ar- 

 senic make good poisons, and grain soaked in a sweetened solution 

 of either of these poisons and dropped into holes made in the roof 

 of their tunnels is very effective. Where there are stumps or logs 

 or brush heaps that can be overturned quickly, the mice can often 

 be caught by hand, and clearing a field of such shelters is not 

 without its effect in lessening their numbers. 



