142 COMMON BRITISH ANIMALS 



have found they enjoy almost any vegetable substance 

 when hungry, but prefer sweet grass, clover and 

 carrots to all other food. A supply of water is, 

 however, essential to them/^ 



Plagues of field voles have been recorded in 

 history, and several references to these records are 

 given by Mr. J. E. Harting. 



In the ''Historia Animalium ^ Aristotle speaks of 

 the destruction caused by mice more than 2000 

 years ago."^ 



" There is a doubt respecting the reproduction 

 and destruction of the mice which live on the 

 ground, for such an inexpressible number of field 

 mice have sometimes made their appearance that 

 very little food remained. Their power of destnic- 

 tion is so great that some small farmers, having on 

 one day observed that their corn was ready for 

 harvest, when they went the following day to cut 

 their corn found it all eaten. The manner of their 

 disappearance also is unaccountable ; for in a few 

 days they all vanished although beforehand they 

 could not be exterminated by smoking and digging 

 them out, nor by hunting them and turning swine 

 among them to root up their runs. Foxes also hunt 

 them out, and wild weasels are very ready to destroy 

 them ; but they cannot prevail over their numbers 

 and the rapidity of their increase, nor, indeed, can 

 anything prevail over them but rain, and when this 

 comes they disappear very soon." 



Mr. Millais also speaks of the account given by 

 Herodotus ('Euterpe' IF, 141) of the defeat of the 

 * Bohn's edition and translation, p. 187, 



