The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-01-05
THE MORNING NEWS: WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 5, 1898

regard to it has only just been published in
a United States consular report.
The pest extended throughout a very
wide agricultural area in southern and
western Russia, extending far into Sibe-
ria; and the various native field-mice seem
to have been accompanied by rats, house
mice, and even shrews, and to move, as a
body. from east to west. Similar desuuc-
tive migrations-alw3ys toward the west
have been noticed before, at intervals OF
from twelve to twenty years. The dam
age done varied with the density of the
plague in the various districts, and seems
on the whole to have been more to stored
than to growing grain. The consular re-
port cited says: while in some districts
the increase Of mice was not very great,
in others their increase was enormous III
the fields, farm yards, gardens, dwellns-
houses and other buildings, and even IN
wells and on rivers to such an extent tnat
the population of that locality discontinued
the use of fish as food especially pike, be-
cause it was discovered that they con-
tanned mice Besides grain de-
voured and spoiled, heavy losses were
caused through the damaging of clothing
yarn and Of buildings which were under
mined along the floors walls and ceilings.
The boldness of the mice is shown in the
fact that they not only gnawed the wool
from animals and the hair from the headS
of people who were sleeping, but there
were even instances of open attacks on
men engaged in labor on the thresnlng-
floors
IAN incident which came under my own
personal observation is not without inter-
est. While l was waiting for train at
small station on a branch line OF the
Southwestern railway, a clergyman, with
very long hair and beard, who was walk
ing up and down the platform, stopped
for a moment and raised the end of can
ub large
quantity of wheat which was awaiting
shipment. In an instant a mass of mice
sprang at him, and his beard, hair, ana
cloak were literally alive with them. 10
brush them off was matter OF some 1ilhe'
and when my fellow traveller at length
thought himself free, he was dismayed 10
find a mouse in each of his trousers peck
cts
The causes of these pestiferous irruptions
of mice seem substantially the same in all
cases. The destruction of natural enc
mics, such as wildcats, hawks, Owls
snakes etc, allows the little rodents, nat
urally exceedingly prolific, to multiply I'M
duly. Then comes a very favorable win
ter, as the unusually warm season of 1872
SO in Russia, when all conditions are favor
able for their life and increase, and vast
and sudden augmentation of their num-
bers follows. There is then not enough
food in the woods, and they spread 10
nCl2nDOIlDS ClGdTlNSS anu ChANANe'ICN AeN'-A-.
IT, as happened in 1898 in Russia, they ma
everywhere an extraordinary amount OF
stacked and stored grain, new generations
rapidly follow, thrive upon the READY 1000
and an enormous and apparently sudden
increase occurs, which, OVERCOMING
spreads in all directions.
Their disappearance after season or
two is no more mysterious, When stuoiea
Mechanical means of repression are or 1T
tie use, and one of the peculiarities OF the
Russian plague was that the dogs and cats
would not help the farmers by eating the
pests All rodents, and mice in particular,
are however, infested with parasites, IN
terna and external, and these increase ana
flourish most when the anismais are most
numerous and gregarious The conse-
ouence is that, aided by epidemic diseases,
the parasites soon conquer and destroy all
but a few of the strongest, and the hordes
literally die out 1t is said that after the
Nova Scotia episode related above, win
rows of them were to be seen on the sea
and beaches, where the mice had rushed in
and drowned: and else where the air was
sometimes tainted with the mass Of tiny
corpses in the fields. In Russia, however,
a great deal was done to ex-
pedite this result by feeding to
them bacillic cultures producing
q tvDhoid disease fatal to the mice.
Immense numbers We're no doubt Killed by
this means. At any rate the mice were
not sufficiently numerous to be trouble
some during 1894, and since then have dis
appeared