White-footed mice (_Peromyscus_).--Green (1936) saw a weasel in Gratiot
County, Michigan, in May, carrying a _Peromyscus_. Quick (1944:76), in
winter, in Michigan, found one dead, probably killed by a weasel. From
Washtenaw County, Michigan, Quick (1944:77) examined 294 scats of
free-living weasels and found _Peromyscus_ in 189 scats, _Microtus_ in
83, small birds in 20, red squirrel in 3, and hair of weasels in small
quantities (probably from the animals which deposited the scats) in 36.
He concludes (_op. cit._, 78) that the winter food was 65 to 70 per
cent _Peromyscus_, 23 to 33 per cent _Microtus_, and 2 to 7 per cent
small birds.
Wood rats (_Neotoma_).--A female long-tailed weasel weighing 250 grams
was taken one mile north of Kent, Texas, while eating a _Neotoma
albigula_ (Davis and Robertson, 1944:263). A wood rat house under
observation by Vestal (1937:364) in Contra Costa County, California,
was invaded by one weasel which ate two adult wood rats (_Neotoma
fuscipes_) and one young. In the same area he saw a weasel in a wood
rat nest some months later (Vestal, 1938:5). Three miles east of Reno,
Nevada, on May 13, 1936, W. B. Richardson watched a long-tailed weasel
carrying a half-grown round-tailed wood rat (_Neotoma lepida_) across a
rock slide (Hall, 1946, 192). Harper (1927:303) records three wood rats
[_Neotoma floridana_] and two cotton rats [_Sigmodon hispidus_] found
dead in the den of a female weasel and her three young in the
Okefinokee Swamp of Georgia. Another female and three young
approximately half grown were found in the swamp in a hollow pine log.
Contents of the den as described to Harper were nearly a peck of wood
rats, whole and in pieces; remains of several kinds of birds including
robins and quail, and a piece of joint snake (_Ophisaurus ventralis_).
Meadow mice (_Microtus_).--Polderboer, Kuhn and Hendrickson (1941), in
1939, at Ames, Iowa, identified "A total of 118 items . . . in 97
winter scats and 48 in the 38 spring scats." Their combined data are as
follows:
Frequency Percentage
Meadow mouse 71 42.85
Harvest mouse 36 21.75
Deer mouse 17 10.23
Mearns cottontail 14 8.42
Short-tailed shrew 9 5.42
House mouse 3 1.86
Tree sparrow 2 1.02
Grasshopper 1 .60
Shaw pocket gopher 1 .60
Least weasel 9 5.40
Unidentified material 3 1.85
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