Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1907, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1907. 
t VOL. LXVIII.—No.' 6. 
1 No. 346 Broadway, New York 
The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre¬ 
ation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
Objects. Announcement in first number oi 
Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
MEADOW MICE A DANGER. 
It is but a few years since the relations of 
the inconspicuous forms of animal life to man’s 
well being began to be studied; but within that 
time not a little progress has been made in de¬ 
termining the beneficial and injurious effect on 
agriculture of a number of insects, birds and 
mammals. The ruin wrought by hordes of in¬ 
sects has been known from very early times, and 
man has always stood helpless before the enor¬ 
mous multitude of these creatures which indi¬ 
vidually were too puny for consideration. We 
know now that the most effective and cheapest 
method of dealing with injurious insects is to 
foster and encourage their natural enemies, and 
an understanding of the wisdom of this simple 
policy is slowly spreading among people in gen¬ 
eral. Of these enemies birds are among the most 
important, and the protective bird movement has 
thus a solid economic foundation. The swarm¬ 
ing together of birds which destroy the farmers’ 
crops has for the most part passed away, though 
it is said that the rice fields of the south still 
suffer from this cause. 
The time has been when in certain localities 
small mammals have appeared in such numbers 
as to cause immense damage to crops. We are 
all familiar with the stories told of the migra¬ 
tions of the lemmings of Europe. These small 
mouse-like animals—native to the northern parts 
of Lapland, Sweden and Norway—at times in¬ 
crease to such great numbers as to devour all 
the food in their district and to be obliged to 
move away. It is the search for food that 
causes the vast migrations of which we have 
heard. The lemmings usually proceed in a 
direct line and advance steadily, and are not to 
be turned aside by any obstacles, until finally all 
have perished, for during their migrations multi¬ 
tudes of them are destroyed by their natural 
enemies. So great are their numbers and so 
strong the motive that animates them, that they 
destroy all crops in their path, cross towns, moun¬ 
tains and rivers, and at last reaching the shores 
of the sea, enter it and are drowned. 
In northern Europe and America there are 
allies of the lemmings which under favorable 
conditions might do as much damage as the 
lemmings, and which, as it is, do a great deal 
of harm by destroying grass and crops. In 
America there are no less than seventy-five 
species of these meadow mice, some of which 
are very small, while others are as large as a 
rat. Although seldom seen, they are among the 
most numerous of our mammals, odd looking, 
blunt nosed, short tailed, little brown mice, of 
secretive habits and well able to take care of 
themselves. In winter a thaw will often disclose 
their tunnels, dug out under the snow, running 
in all directions in search of food. Such mice 
may do an enormous amount of damage to the 
crops and the young trees of country dwellers, 
and as they are astonishingly prolific and are 
unwittingly protected by man, who thoughtlessly 
destroys the enemies which under natural condi¬ 
tions would prey on them, they are constantly in¬ 
creasing. 
At various times certain districts of Europe 
have been overrun by meadow mice, which have 
so ravaged the crops as to bring ruin to the 
farmers. Such a plague visited Scotland in 1892 
and was so serious as to be the subject of in¬ 
quiry by the British Board of Agriculture. Hun¬ 
gary. France, Russia and Greece have suffered 
like visitations in recent years. 
As it happens, the United States has never 
suffered from a plague of mice which is at all 
comparable to those that they had on the conti¬ 
nent of Europe. Nevertheless, large losses 
through mice are constantly being sustained by 
agriculturists, and the danger is one that seems 
likely to grow rather than to diminish. The 
plants of the market gardener are subject to their 
depredations, as well those that are out all win¬ 
ter, as the seeds and the growing plants in the 
spring, and crops ready for the harvest in the 
fall. The harm that they do is least noticeable 
in the summer when vegetation is most luxur¬ 
iant and is greatest in winter and early spring. 
It was estimated that in the years 1816 and 1817 
the loss by meadow mice in a single depart¬ 
ment of France was $600,000. 
As these mice increase with great rapidity, they 
would become astonishingly numerous if left un¬ 
checked. Brehm in an account of the meadow 
mice of Germany says that in the year 1883 in 
a single district 1,570,000 field mice were caught 
in fourteen days, in another district nearly 600,- 
000, in another 250,000. 
Among the effective enemies of these meadow 
mice are hawks, owls, herons, foxes, raccoons, 
weasels, mink, badgers, skunks and snakes. 
These creatures devote all their time to the pur¬ 
suit of food and the number of mice which they 
destroy is beyond computation. These natural 
enemies are constantly at work protecting the 
farmers’ crops and doing for him a work that no 
man and no number of men could possibly per¬ 
form. Since the wellbeing of the whole coun¬ 
try depends on the wellbeing of the farmer, it 
is worth our while to protect and encourage these 
unpaid helpers in the work of cultivating the 
soil. 
It is readily conceivable that the continual de¬ 
struction of the natural enemies of the mice 
might mean the increase of the rodents to a 
point where they would become an absolute 
menace to agriculture. 
GOOD LAWS IGNORED. 
It is difficult enough for the warden to enforce 
the game and fish laws when the average citizen 
is friendly, but it is discouraging work when he 
learns that a certain law is unpopular with the 
citizens of a few towns, and that they regard it 
as a dead letter. Too often good friends of the 
cause sanction this, and although the law was 
made for the benefit of all of the citizens of the 
State, and by them is respected, because a few 
people in a certain section oppose the law, the 
cry goes up that it cannot be enforced. Re¬ 
spectable in all other ways, these people com¬ 
bine to set at naught a law favored by the State 
at large. If the warden is easy-going, the matter 
is dropped; if agressive, his life is made miser¬ 
able. _ 
The New York Legislature will this winter act 
on a number of measures of importance to tbe 
sportsmen of the State. Besides the measures 
affecting the forest reserve, others relating to 
game and fish seasons.will be acted on. Among 
these is the resident and nonresident bill, one 
relating to fishing on Sunday, a proposed change 
in the trout season, a bill to prohibit the posses¬ 
sion of game killed outside the State, another one 
affecting minnow taking, etc. The friends of 
safe and sensible legislation should watch care¬ 
fully the work of their representative at Albany. 
* 
The collection of natural history specimens 
brought from Africa to the United States last 
week by Carl E. Akeley and his wife is one 
of the largest and most comprehensive of any 
obtained in recent years. It will be seen in due 
time in the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago. 
The expedition started for Africa nearly two 
years ago. Besides the Akeleys, Edmund 
Heller and Vernon Shaw Kennedy went along 
but returned home after a few months. The 
groups and individual specimens are believed to 
be very fine. 
David Pulis, who died at Honesdale, Pa., 
last Saturday, aged ninety-three years, is credited 
with having trapped the last panther seen in 
Wayne county. This fact is treasured by the 
Pulis family, which also claims that the de¬ 
ceased’s grandfather pulled an oar in the boat 
in which General Washington crossed the Dela- 
ware. 
It remains to be seen what effect the sudden 
changes in temperature of the nresent winter 
may have on the game birds of the Atlantic 
coast States. While there has been little snow, 
mild and rainy days have been followed by bitter 
cold ones, and frequently the temperature has 
ranged through twenty or thirty degrees in as 
many hours. Friends of the quail should not 
neglect to ascertain how these birds are faring, 
and if it seems necessary, place food where they 
can find it. 
