220 
Fermm of the Farm. 
“ Two pegs are thrust firmly into the ground, standing a few Inches high 
at such a distance apart as to admit of a brick being placed between them. 
A piece of twine is then taken, and a bean which has been softened by soak- 
ing is threaded upon it like a bead. It is then extended between the two 
pegs, and firmly secured at either end to them, the bean being about the 
middle of the twine. The brick is then placed between the pegs in such a 
position that one end is supported by the twine, whilst the other remains 
upon the ground. The mice in eating the bean, which they will not fail to 
do, sever the string and the brick falls upon them.’’ 
Tiles, or heavy slates, may be substituted for bricks, but, in 
that case, one should be placed on the ground to form a floor, 
otherwise the weight of the falling one might not be sufficient 
to kill a mouse if only loose soil were beneath. With this form 
of trap a dozen mice have been taken in one garden in a single 
night. 
But, as in the case of many other so-called “vermin,” their 
presence is not always an unmixed evil, and the long-tailed fleld- 
mouse makes some little amends for its depredations in our 
gardens and fields by devouring various kinds of aphides, and the 
larvte of moths and beetles which are destructive to crops. 
The late Mr. Edwin Birchall, a good entomologist, has de- 
scribed {Zoologist, 1866, pp. 8-9) the number and variety of 
moths eaten by the long-tailed field-mouse, the rejected wings 
in each case indicating the species whose body had been devoured 
by the mouse which he trapped. 
He made a careful examination of these and found among 
them the remains of the following twenty species : — 
Xylophasia polyodon (a few), Charceas graminis (a few), Luperina ies- 
tacea (a few), Agrotis sujfusn aud Agrotis segetum (abundantly), Triphcma 
orbona (abundantly), Noctua glareosa (abundantly), N. festiva and X. xan- 
thographa (a few), Orthosia macilenta (in profusion), Avchocelis riifina, and 
A. litura (several), Cerastis vaccinii (abundantly), Xanthia ferruginea 
(abundantly), Miselia oxycanthce (one only), Agriopis (qyrilina (abundantly), 
Phlogophora meticulosa (a few), JIadena glauca (one only), Plusia gamma 
(in hundreds), and Amphipyra tragopogonis (one only). 
The little harvest-mouse (flus messorius) already alluded to, 
and here figured (Fig. 2) is, like the last named, a dweller in 
stacks as well as in the open country. It forms a winter retreat 
underground, and a summer dwelling amid the corn-stalks in 
the shape of a globular nest composed of grasses or split leaves 
of the reed, and suspended among the living plants at a little 
distance from the ground. Its prehensile tail is a noteworthy 
feature, and it is of great service to the little animal when de 
scending the wheat-stalks. 
Like the last named species, it is to a certain extent insecti- 
