MILLIONS OF MICE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3334, 28 September 1911, Page 3

MILLIONS OF MICE.

DAILY HAUL OF /THREE HUND- • RRD FROM ONE TANK. Mice are almost the sole topic of conversation in. the Yor-lce’s Peninsula district of South' Australia, The locality is groaning under a plague of mice 1 . A resident of Adelaide, who has recently made a tour in the peninsula, records/ that “apparently there liave been millions of the rodents, for, although sudden death has removed scores of thousands, legions remain. One man told me that every- morning he skims about 300 off the water in his underground stock tank. Another on opening the top of his drill a few mornings since, found some of the feed-pipes choked, and approximately 400 mice in the seedbox. “The stacks of wheat at different places present a deplorable' appearance, owing to the ravages of the little pests. Grain is running down the sides in all directions, and it is practically impossible to move a bag without disturbing them by the dozen. The wheat lumpers kill hundreds' with their bare hands, and' tie strings round the bottoms of their pants to prevent invasions from below.”

In the Koolunga district the mice have been showing signs of disease, and sores are breaking out on the hands and arms of the men engaged in transporting wheat, presumably through contact with bags and other things over which the vermin have run. In several instances people have had their supplies of domestic water rendered unfit for consumption owing to the mice drowned in the tanks. .