The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-01-05
PLAQUES OF MICE.
A Curiosity of Industrial Zoology
VisitatiOns of wild Mice.
From the New York Post.


such numbers as often to do serious dam
age to growing crops and to stored grain
and vegetables. The harm done how
ever, has frequently been surpassed in
times past.
Indeed, one of the curiosiues Of what
may be called industrial zoology is the re-
curing plaques of mice that from time
to time have afflicted various parts of the
world. Egypt is not a good country for
mlce-not only on account of its natural
features, but because of the cultivation Of
cats there from time immemorial-or this
plague might have been added to the ar
guments that went so far towards con-
vincing the Pharoah of the Exodus that it
was wise to let the Jews depart. In re-
gions where settlements are mingled with
large tracts of wild land, however, enor-
nous incursion Of various SPECIES of mice
have from time to time greatly injured or
even desolated, extensive areas of farms
Thus a French-Canadian writer OF 20
years ago notes that Prince Edward ISL
and was subject to be overrun by these
little pests every seven years. The mys-
tic potency of the number seven had not
been lost at that time, and its use in this
case adds picturesque strength TO the
statement, even if it does not add accura-
CIV. Later writers were less precise put
made similar statements in regard to both
Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
Authentic information, however, exists as
TO the year 1775, when a colony OF scotch
people from Dumfries had just become
well settled a what is now Georgetown
Their crops promised well, but as soon as
Aa1l mil
ted so numerouslyas to devour every plant,
even to the potatoes in the ground. They
boldly entered the dwellings of the settlers,
and, when they could get no other 1000
they even gnawed the leather in the plnd-
ing of books. The consequence was lldt
the settlers were brought to the verge
of starvation and would undoubtedly have
narished had they not been able to procure
supplies of potatoes from an older French
settlement some distance away. one OF
the island harbors is still called Sourls, or
Mouse. perhaps in memory OF some such a
visitation as this.
The wear 1915 was long known in Nova
Scotia as the wear of mice" The preced-
ing winter had been unusually cold and
snowy. and the spring was late, but with
! the early growth of The tardy crops mice
began to appear, and continually multi
piled in Eastern Nova Scotia until their
number was prodigious. All the local spe-
cies were represented, but the main part
of the horde consisted of the short-tailed
meadow-mouse or vole (Arvicola).
Throughout a district eighty miles IN
length by fifty miles wide, which then
consisted mostly of new and isolated set
Elements more or less surrounded by for
ests, the destruction of all forms OF pro-
duce except hay was so complete that 1t
entaned great loss of live stock and
made needful the importation of large
quantities of breadstuffs forage, and seed.
The account of this visitation compiled
for the Canadian Record of Science some
years ago gives interesting particulars
The mice first became noticeable at the
maple-sugar camps, where in places the
snow was literally packed down by their
trampling and the sap-troughs were fou!ed
by them. Before planting-tim was over,
the fields as well as the woods swarmed
with them, and the later seed-grain and
potatoes were all eaten before they had a
chance to terminate. One man is said to
have given up trying to SOW oats on
certaina spot, the mice coming about him
in such crowds that his oats were de-
voured as fast as he scattered them. By
midsummer, one could not NOW without
cutting some mice down with each sweep
of the scythe and in many places the hay
had been dragged and pressed down so fiat
as to be unfit for cutting. They were
bold too and actually fierce If pur-
at bay sitting upon their launches, set
ting their teeth, and squealing viciously.
The males fought like little terriers.
Cats dogs, martens and foxes gorged
themselves on them to repletion, but with
| little apparent diminution of their num-
bers. The domestic cats multi
piled so that the next year they became a
nuisance. They were so wild that they
were a terror to children, and were hunt
ed and killed in great numbers
The hay crop was much damaged. The
mice cut so much of it that it lay withered
But is was when the grains
began to ripen that their distructiveness
became especially manifest. They then at
tackled ii in such numbers that all means
were unavailing to arrest their progress.
They have been known to cut down an acre
in three days, SO that whole fields were
destroyed in a short time. The jumping
mice would spring at the ear and thus
bring il to the ground, but The others were
in the habit, as the country people express
cd it. of junlking it. They would nip off a
stalk a little above the ground. leaving it
still upright; they bit ii further up, until
it fell over or the end came within their
reach, when they would either devour the
grain or draw it 20 their nests, which were
commonly under the roots of stumps. over
stumps and acres they left not a stalk
standing nor a grain of wheat 20 reward
the labors of the farmers. Trenches were
dug. and when it could be done, We're filed
with water, but they formed only a slight
barrier to the ravages of the rodents When
the grain was consumed the mice burrow-
ed in the ground so far as to attack the po-
tatoes
Plaques so severe as these do not seem
to have been repeated in the maritime
provinces nor to have occurred within the
United States. Analogous invasions of
squirrels, often highly destructive. were of
frequent occurrence among frontier settle
ments in the early history of the upper
Mississippi valley. Traditions and records
exist, however. of similar costly visitations
by hordes of small rodents i'm various Eu
ropean countries, and the fable Of the Pied
Piper of Hamein may have originated in
something of the sort. There are Chinese
and East Indian legends of the same char
acter. The moor parts of Scotland have
been afflicted in this way-the last occur
renee being only a dozen years ago: and In
northern Scandinavian incursions by
hordes of lemmings-a sort Of mouse-are
suffered every few years. The latest and
most noteworthy plague of this kind. how
ever, occurred in Russia during the season
Of 1854. and summary Of the facts in