However, by 1828 John MacGregor could view such outbreaks as a phenomenon of the past: he noted that within the previous twenty years little injury had been done to the crops. Thereafter, the only author to make reference to them is Sutherland (1861) who refers in passing to one of the ’mouse’ species that he describes, as being the mouse that "at one time did great destruction to the crops".

Based on Jean-Pierre Roma's detailed description of the habits of the vole that caused the plague in 173824, I considered in my earlier report that his description appeared to better fit the red-backed vole (C/elthrionmys gappen), rather than the meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanlcus), which has been more generally viewed as the culprit.25 Unfortunately, the British period recorders on the island do not give us enough information on either the appearance, ecology or behaviour of the ’plague' vole, so as to enable us to settle the matter once and for all: what records there are, indicate that the animal was a largish ’mouse’ with a short tail”. Even so, I believe that the history

Island Magazine, 1899, Vol. 1, pp, 201—05.] In response to the appeal, W. B. Tuplin, sent in a letter in which he cited oral tradition for what he called “the last year of the mice" (1814), when “a great part of the grain was destroyed". His three ‘sources‘ (whom he names) all lived in either Tryon or the Bedeque Bay area. [Refz The Prince Edward Island Magazine, 1899, Vol. 1 (May), p. 128.]. Twenty-three years earlier, another writer, probably less reliably, had said that 1813 was the year of the mouse ‘plague’ “over all Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island" — he cited as his source a man living in Pictou in 1845 who had been “driven out of lsle St. John by the mice”. [Refz MacLeod, D. (1876) Memoir of Norman Mac/eod. DD, by his Brother, Belford Brothers, Toronto (pp. 156- 57).]

2“ See Sobey 2002, pp. 157-59. 25 I considered that three of Roma’s pieces of evidence pointed to the red-backed vole: the plague vole, or mu/of as Roma called it, was a woodland species (this, confirmed by all the French recorders, fits only the red-backed vole, which is a forest vole); it made substantial underground food caches for the winter, and it was able to climb (although not as well as the souris (probably the deer mouse). These last two properties are characteristic of the red-backed vole as described by Hamilton and Whitaker (1979) and did not seem to apply to the meadow vole. l have since found that Banfield (1974) in The Mammals of Canada states that the red-backed vole does not store up food for winter, whereas he says the meadow vole does. However, this is contradicted by Godin (1977), in Wild Mammals of New England, who records that the red-backed vole caches seeds and tubers during severe winters, while the meadow vole only does so occasionally. (Godin also notes that the red-backed vole is a good climber.) It is evident that there is a great deal of uncertainty about the habits of both of these species of vole and that more extensive observations are required.

25 Patterson (1770) described them as “in size something between our mice and rats in England"; a letter printed anonymously in the Belfast News Letter (Anon. 1773) with the seeming aim of deterring Irish immigrants from coming to the Island of St. John, described them as "mice as large as rats without any tails“, a description very similar to that of Shuttleworth (1793),

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of the incidence of the outbreaks — the fact that they occurred only during the early pioneer phase of settlement and ceased as the forests were cleared — favours the red—backed vole, a woodland vole that would have declined as a result of forest removal.27

Many years after the last outbreak Sutherland (1861) named the culprit as the ”burrowing field mouse”, which he said was ”still frequently seen in the field and woods”. He added that ”it burrowed in the ground and [made] a fine hay [and lived] on fine roots and seeds”. Comparison with the descriptions of the vole considered responsible for the 1815 outbreak in Nova Scotia, and of the names applied to it there, suggests that Sutherland's ’burrowing field mouse' is the meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanlcus)”, though we must note that both he and the Nova Scotia authors were working retrospectively, and that in Nova Scotia some people considered that more than one species of mouse or vole was involved in the outbreak.29

a proprietor at Morell, who said they had “very large bodies and short tails, the people here think they are something like moles".

27 It is significant that the outbreaks occurred only in the early days of settlement when new clearings were being opened up in the forest. All of the recorders, both French and British, saw the plague mouse as coming from these surrounding forests, and some believed (eg. Roma 1750, Stewart 1806, Johnstone 1822) that with increasing settlement and the gradual removal of the forest from the landscape, the incidence of such plagues would decline — as is indeed what happened. Such forest clearance would have led to a decline in the amount of habitat available for the red-backed vole, and thus a decline in their numbers. However, with forest clearance there would have been an increase in habitats suitable for the meadow vole, such as grassland and meadow, and its numbers now are likely to be far higher than in the days before European settlement. If it were the meadow vole that was the culprit we might expect the outbreaks to have increased with forest clearance - instead the plagues ceased long ago, the last being recorded about 1815.

28 Dawson (1856) attributed the 1815 outbreak in Nova Scotia to what he called Arvico/a pennsylvanica (0rd.) [this name is not listed by Hall (1981) but can only be Microtus pennsylvanlcus], a species he said that “abounded everywhere, both in the woods and cultivated grounds, they excavate burrows [my italics] under stones and stumps sometimes a yard in depth," and they were "active during the greater part of the winter, [forming] long galleries under the snow, devouring grass, roots, the bark of young trees and all other edible substances that they meet in their progress”. The description — apart from the burrows a yard deep — appears to fit that of Microtus pennsylvanlcus, as given by Hamilton and Whitaker (1979).

Thirty years later the Rev. George Patterson (1886), also in Nova Scotia, said that all of the persons with whom he "[had] conversed in the County of Pictou, [agreed] that the creature was what [was] commonly known as the large, burrowing [my italics] or short-tailed field mouse, sometimes called the meadow mouse (Arvicola ripana 0rd)". This is an old name for Microtus pennsylvanlcus (Hall 1981, p, 795).

29 Patterson (1886) recorded that people who had observed the 1815 plague, considered that more than one species was involved: