GNAWINC4 ANIMALS — RODENTS 147 



" An army of mice resting in the anthills as conies 

 in burrows, shaved off the grass at the bare roots, 

 which withering to dung, was infectious to cattle. 

 In March following numberless flocks of owls from 

 all parts flew thither and destroyed them, which 

 otherwise had ruined the country if continuing 

 another year/^ 



A plague of mice occurred at Downham Market 

 in Norfolk in 1754 and Montagu mentions in his 

 ' Ornithological Dictionary ' (1813) a similar plague 

 at Bridgewater as occurring a few years previously. 



So serious was the plague of voles in Scotland, 

 especially in Dumfriesshire and Roxburghshire, where 

 between 80,000 and 90,000 acres were overrun by 

 these small creatures, that a Government committee, 

 under the presidency of Sir Herbert Maxwell, was 

 appointed in May, 1892, to inquire and report upon 

 this plague in the south of Scotland. Much evidence 

 was taken which went to prove that the undue in- 

 crease of '^ field mice ^' was in a great measure due 

 to the destruction of their natural enemies, in the 

 shape of owls, hawks, weasels and stoats. '' The 

 general remarks,^^ says Mr. Millais, ^^ of farmers, 

 shepherds, land agents, naturalists, and even game- 

 keepers all tended to show that, through the 

 destruction of raptorial birds and small carnivora, 

 the balance of nature had been upset.^^ 



Mr. Hartiug, writing in the 'Field,' May, 1904, 

 says, '"Nothing was more abundantly proved in the 

 Scottish inquiry than the fact that the greatest 

 check on the undue increase of field voles was 

 removed by the indiscriminate destruction of so-called 



