1 76 
MAMMALIA 
ascertained. Fortunately, they generally recur at long intervals. 
Arboreous vegetation suffers most during winters of deep snow, the 
snow enabling the Mice to reach the bark at a considerable height, 
and at the same time protecting them from the inclemencies of the 
weather. I have seen fruit trees, and also saplings of the maple and 
beech, more or less completely girdled to the height of four and even 
five feet (1.21 to 1.52 metres). During the winter of 1868 or 1869 
thousands of young trees were destroyed in Lewis County alone. 
In places where corn or grain is allowed to stand in shocks for any 
length of time, large losses are occasioned by the Mice. The amount 
of food consumed by a single individual is of course comparatively 
insignificant, but that required to sustain the total number inhabiting 
a given district is not to be ignored. And when it is borne in mind 
that the food of this species consists almost exclusively of the produce 
of the agriculturist, the fact becomes evident that the animal is a 
source of continuous pecuniary loss to the farmer. Omitting reference 
to the years when the species is present in excessive numbers, it is a low 
estimate to say that twenty-five Mice live upon every acre of meadow 
land. Hence the total number present upon an ordinarily productive 
farm of two hundred acres would not be less than five thousand. 
Now suppose that the owner of a farm of this size should capture and 
keep in confinement five thousand Meadow Mice, feeding them upon 
their natural food, grain and the roots of grass. Would it be strange 
if, in the course of a few months, he should become so alarmed at 
the cost in dollars and cents, of keeping such a host of these ravenous 
creatures that he should have them all put to death ? And yet, our 
farmers not only look on in stolid indifference while their property 
and the fruits of their labors suffer, from this source, annual losses 
which they can ill afford to bear, but they even help the Mice to in- 
crease in numbers and maintain supremacy over their fields ! This 
they do in several ways, chiefly by neglecting measures for the rid- 
dance of the Mice, and, what is of vastly more consequence, by en- 
couraging the destruction of those birds and mammals that habitually 
