. Some common mammals of western Montana in relation to agriculture and spotted fever . pine-covered slopes, in housesand stables, in dense forests, in grainfields, in damp meadows, andin dry fields. (Fig. 20.) The mice do not hibernate and are activeeven during the coldest nights in midwinter. They raise severallitters of young each year, the average number in each being fouror five. 484 30 COMMON MAMMALS OF WESTERN MONTANA. They live principally on seeds, berries, and grain, and lay up quan-tities of food for the winter. Owing to their abundance they destroyconsiderable quantities of grain a
. Some common mammals of western Montana in relation to agriculture and spotted fever . pine-covered slopes, in housesand stables, in dense forests, in grainfields, in damp meadows, andin dry fields. (Fig. 20.) The mice do not hibernate and are activeeven during the coldest nights in midwinter. They raise severallitters of young each year, the average number in each being fouror five. 484 30 COMMON MAMMALS OF WESTERN MONTANA. They live principally on seeds, berries, and grain, and lay up quan-tities of food for the winter. Owing to their abundance they destroyconsiderable quantities of grain and berries, often carrying off andstoring more than they eat on the spot. (Fig. 21.) They do greatdamage in nurseries and on forest sowing areas, where they dig upand destroy the seeds, this damage being so serious that no sowing canbe successful where they are plentiful. They are frequent hosts of young wood ticks and are of especialimportance in fever districts because they frequently live in occupied houses and may thus be the means ofbringing infected ticks into contactwith POISONING WHITE-FOOTED MICE. In most localities white-footed micetake poison readily and are easily killedby any of the baits recommended foichipmunks or ground squirrels. (SeeFormulas I to IV.) The poisoningmust be done, however, in the springor earl} summer, for after the variousnative seeds and berries ripen, the micebegin to store away their winter food,and poisoned baits are simply stored,not eaten. Thus while 13 dead miceli ne been found from a couple of dozenpoison baits placed early in the sum-mer, 5 bushels of poisoned wheat havebeen carried off by the animals in Octo-ber without materially lessening theirnumbers. It is therefore evident that,though white-footed mice are easily killed in- the spring and earlysummer, poisoning done after the native seeds and berries ripen islikely to be wholly useless. HOUSE MICE. These little gray mice, with their long hairless tails and small ears,are nat
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