9 eb. 33,1994 
533 
Life Habits of Meadow Mice 
Mouse plagues, disastrous as they are locally, are of minor importance 
in comparison with the steady yearly drain on crops by the mice over 
the country at large in normal years. Even as few as 10 meadow mice 
to the acre on 100 acres of meadow would take about 11 tons of grass, 
or 5 K tons of hay, a year. Or this number on the 65,000,000 acres of 
hay raised in the 38 mouse States [see “Monthly Crop Reporter,” p. 153, 
1921 (21)], would cause a loss of over 3,000,000 tons of hay a year, or a 
money loss of some $30,000,000 annually in hay alone. 
Of other crops, grains suffer most from the ravages of meadow mice, 
especially when left long in shocks or stacks after harvest and in situa¬ 
tions where accessible, but from the seed and sprouting grain to the 
ripened crop all grains are eagerly eaten. Small fields are likely to suffer 
most, as the mice penetrate less readily to the middle of large cultivated 
areas. 
Root crops and vegetables are sometimes injured by meadow mice, 
but usually not so seriously as by the more exclusively burrowing pine 
mice (Pitymys). In times of great abundance of the mice, however, 
they have been known seriously to injure the potato crop and almost 
to destroy many garden vegetables. 
Destruction of fruit trees and many ornamental trees and shrubs in 
winter by the mice eating the bark from the base of the trunks, often 
completely girdling and eventually killing them, causes more annoyance 
than any of the more serious and less conspicuous losses. This is usually 
done under cover of deep snow with no indication of harm until the snow 
has disappeared in spring. Many fine orchards have thus been seriously 
injured or completely ruined. 
METHODS OF CONTROL 
The importance of keeping these mice under control and at a minimum 
number is clearly seen. Much has been published on their habits, 
depredations, and the most economical methods of destruction, and the 
appended references are to papers that cover this phase of the subject: 
4 ; 5 ; 9, P • 97~ 102 '> a ; 12; 16; 18 , p. 97-201; 19, p . 515-537; 20 . 
The most economical and practical method of control, that is, control 
by natural enemies, has been given least emphasis. In his studies of 
the food of hawks and owls (7, 8), Dr. A. K. Fisher has shown the great 
value of these birds in reducing the numbers of meadow mice, but the 
value of many other birds which feed upon them—gulls, terns, herons, 
bitterns, cranes, ravens, crows, magpies, shrikes, jays, and others—has 
not yet been fully recognized. The enormous consumption of these mice 
by skunks, minks, weasels, martens, badgers, ‘foxes, coyotes, bobcats, 
lynxes, and even bears can not fail to have a marked influence on their 
abundance. To what extent they are preyed upon by shrews and flesh¬ 
eating rodents is not fully known. Snakes and even fish help to keep 
them under control. 
The mouse problem involves more than protecting the enemies that 
are otherwise not too obnoxious; it means giving these enemies a chance 
to see and catch the mice, at least at the borders of the fields and meadows, 
and along the roadsides. Simple cultural methods, that would pay for 
themselves in the reduction of weeds and in added beauty of landscape* 
would remove the permanent cover that makes it possible for the mice 
to persist in otherwise well-cultivated areas. Clean fields and meadows, 
and clean borders, roadsides, and ditch banks, would help to solve the 
