
FOREST AND STREAM. 





NATURAL EISTORN7 





Crop Destruction by Meadow Mice. 
It is only about a year since a committee of 
Congress proposed to do away with the Bureau 
of Biological Survey, of which Dr, C. Hart 
Merriam is chief, and thereby awakened the in- 
dignation of a good proportion of the farmers 
of the country. Protests from individual far- 
mers and from granges and other agricultural 
associations began to flow toward Washington 
in a considerable. stream, and before long the 
authors of the attempt got frightened and the 
Survey was continued. 
A useful piece of work just performed by the 
Survey is the investigation of an outbreak of 
meadow mice at Lovelocks in the Humboldt Val- 
ley, Nevada. The danger from meadow mice js 
well understood, and has frequently been referred 
to in Forest anp StrEAM. It is true that in 
America, so far as known, there never have 
been such astonishing migrations of these animals 
aS are reported to have taken place in Europe 
in early times. Here food has always been 

abundant, and with food have been abundant also 
natural enemies of the meadow mice; the birds 
—hawks, owls, ravens, crows and perhaps some 
others; the mammals—bears, wolves, coyotes, 
coons, foxes, skunks, weasels and others. If 
life was easy to the mice because of the abund 
ance of food, their increase served to make life 
easy to the animals that preyed upon them, and 
these animals kept down their numbers within 
reasonable limits. 
When, however, man came in to interfere with 
the balance of nature, to disturb things by kill- 
ing the hawks which he thought might some 
time interfere with his chickens, and the fox and 
weasels, which he also thought might rob him 
of a few pullets, the conditions became changed. 
The farmer, careful for his poultry and afraid 
of the hawks which he could see, never thought 
of the meadow mice which he did not see, or of 
the amount of the damage they did to his hay, 
his potatoes, his young fruit trees, and his other 



crops. He just went on killing hawks, and so 
providing for a constantly greater increase of 
his unseen enemies, the meadow mice. 

At Lovelocks and thereabouts are 100,000 acres 
of land already covered by one of the great Gov- 
ernment irrigation projects, which is known as 
the Truckee Carson Irrigation Project. On this 
great work $9,000,000 js to be spent and ultimately 
400,000 acres are to be brought. under water. 
This watered land the Government expects to 
sell, and thus to recoup itself for the enormous 
expense of the work. Until recently the coun- 
try about Lovelocks has been in a natural con- 
dition; there was so much food for the field 
mice and so many natural enemies to devour 
them. The food supply and the supply of natural 
enemies kept the mice down to somewhere near 
the normal number. With the introduction of 
water, however, came an influx of settlers, with 
their guns and high cultivation of the land. The 
settlers promptly killed off the small carnivorous 
mammals, and the hawks, and the mice with 
abundant food have increased to an astonishing 
degree. Ranchmen near Lovelocks claim a loss 
through meadow mice of $50,000 worth of alfalfa, 
and the ruin by the mice of their fall pastures. 
The mice eat the foliage of the alfalfa, and after 
that they eat the roots. This necessitates re- 
plowing and replanting. The numbers of these 
mice are almost beyond belief. An investigation 
of a limited area by Mr, Bailey showed that there 
were 8,000 mice to the acre, and a count of the 
burrows showed 160 burrows to the square 
rod. 
The destruction of crops caused by these mice 
promises, unless the mice are destroyed, to 
cause serious loss to the general Government. 
Obviously no farmers will move into a section 
where other farmers have been ruined by the 
Tavages of these little rodents; in other words 
the land which the Government expects to spend 
$9,000,000 to put under water will not be saleable 
Owing to this plague of mice. 
This vast amount of food was not unnoticed 
by the natural enemies of the mice. Hawks on 
their migration have come to Lovelocks and 
stopped there, and to feed on the mice. A flock 
of ring-billed gulls have come in and are doing 
the same. Mr, Bailey found the hawks gorged 
with mice and very tame, and pointed out to the 
farmers the good work that the hawks were 
doing and would do. He explained to the ranch- 
men that here were a great number of birds 
which were working constantly in their interest, 
and it was not difficult to make the farmers 
recognize the situation. Heretofore. like many 
other country dwellers, they had been killing 
hawks, but now they realize what a mistake they 
have been making, and declare that no more 
hawks shall be killed. The boys of the district 
have been warned, and an era of hawk protec- 
tion has set in. The farmers now realize also 
that the killing of badgers and other small car- 
nivors has been a mistake, and understand that 
had these and other rapacious creatures been al- 
lowed to live, they would not now be facing such 
a plague of mice. 
The meadow mouse that is causing all this 
damage is known to science as Microtus mon- 
tanus, a species that has always been found in 
the Humboldt valley; it has not migrated thither 
from any other locality. 
That these small creatures by their numbers 
are threatening to render unavailing the work 
of the engineers in Humboldt valley by making 
the land a desert seems a curious state of things. 
This, however, is not the only example of the 
sort, for it is reported that the injury to the 
dikes of the Fallon ditch by gophers, which bur- 
row through these dikes and thus break them 
down, amounts to a great deal. Some of these 
_breaks cost from $200 to $500 to repair, and en- 
gineers have declared that the annual cost of 
these repairs is from $4,000 to $5,000. 
As remarked two weeks ago, the Bureau of 
Biological Survey is at work endeavoring to dis- 
cover means by which the ravages of these small 
creatures may be successfully combatted. Clearly 
their most efficient enemies are the creatures 
that feed on them, but the mice may now have 
got such a start that these enemies cannot at 
once check them. The Biological Survey will 
take a hand in the struggle. A few concrete 
examples of this kind will tend to impress on 
the public the importance of the work which the 
Survey is doing. 
Almost coincident with this plague of meadow 
mice in Nevada, comes an anti-rat crusade, 
started in Great Britain with such supporters as 
Lord Avebury, Sir Lander Brunton, Dr, Crich- 
ten-Browne and Sir Harry Johnson. The an- 
nual damage done by these rodents in England 
alone is said to amount to $50,000,000, and far 
more terrible than this property damage is. the 
hygienic danger for which they are responsible. 
It is pointed out that through rats various plagues 
and epidemics are transmitted and also trichi- 
nosis, which infects pigs and subsequently people 
who eat pork. Rats multiply almost as fast as 
do the meadow mice, and it is said that a 
single pair may produce 800 descendants in a 
year. 
Denmark has endeavored to exterminate rats 
by a bounty of two cents each, and has paid out 
$3,680 on this account. Those who favor the 
bounty declare that the rats killed would have 
done $195,000 worth of damage if they had lived, 
to say nothing-of what their progeny would have 
done. English agitators against the rat advo- 
cate a similar bounty in England, but as has been 
shown in this country, bounties do not destroy 
noxious animals. 

SSS 

The Destructive Spirit. 
WatTERVILLE, N. Y., Dec. 10—Editor Forest 
and Stream: Possibly the readers of Forest 
AND STREAM may be interested in the following 
brief account of a rather unusual occurrence; 
namely, the presence and capture of a loon in 
this village a few days since. 
Waterville is situated some twenty odd miles 
southwest from Utica, the latter place being not 
more than twenty or thirty miles from the edge 
of the Adirondacks. 
Although we are comparatively near the Adi- 
rondacks, where loons abound, it has been many 
years since one of these birds has appeared in | 
this. locality. On Friday last, however, at about 
noon a Mr. W, discovered a full grown female 
loon resting on the snow in a yard near here. 
After a brief struggle the bird was captured. 
The tracks on the snow indicated that the bird 
had not moved after alighting. Mr. W. was 
not aware at this time that he had secured a 
loon; in fact, had no idea what it was. Satur- 
day I saw it and was able to pronounce it a loon. 
It seemed unhurt, was full -of fight, and suc- 
ceeded in giving several of the bystanders rather | 
severe jabs with its bill, 
knew what it was, one of them remarking that 
it was about forty years since he’ had seen one 
in this vicinity. Mr. W.-sold- me his unusual 
find for twenty-five cents, which he assured me 
was only half its worth. 
After having some pictures of it taken, I set 
about restoring it to liberty. - Thinking that it 
might possibly be able to fly were it released 
from some high place, I took it to the top of a 
hill and gave it a toss into the air. It-was un- 
able to get under way, however, but* came down 
with considerable force on to the snow. It 
landed full of fight, and raising itself*with the 
aid of its wings, lunged at me several times, at 
the same time giving its quavering call.. After 
catching it again I carried it to a small spring 
hole where I released it. It manifested every 
sign of satisfaction on getting back into water; 
swimming and ‘diving continually. I was unable 
to find any more suitable place to which to take 
it, as the ponds I visited in .this vicinity were 
frozen solid. Just before dark I visited the 
spring hole again and found the bird apparently 
enjoying itself. 
At about 9 o’clock Sunday morning I again 
went to the pond. Before leaving the house my 
mother said, “I heard a gunshot about half-past 
seven, and I’m afraid your bird is gone.” 
I found on reaching the pool a ten-gauge shot 
shell and blood drops on the snow which I traced 
to a yard not far away? The loon was hanging 
in a shed, its head nearly severed from its body. 
It need hardly be said that I was provoked. 
Being unable to fly, and the pool so small that 
it was unable to dive successfully, its shooting 
was murder and nothing else. The man who 
shot the bird was not in evidence, but I was in- 
formed by his wife that her husband did not 
know what the bird was. He certainly took an 
effective way of finding out. 
We are now having a thaw, and had this bird 
not been killed it would undoubtedly have been 
able to continue south, as the ice has gone out 
of the pond which the spring hole and connect- 
ing stream feeds. I afterward learned that no 
less than three of these birds had been taken 
within a radius of a mile or two, and all at about 
the same time. It is probable that, in migrating 
from the Adirondacks, they became bewildered 
or exhausted and dropped to the ground. 
A. O. Mayer. 

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