38 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 
predations is not of that extent which I have assumed 
as probable. Let such carefully read the following 
authentic account of the destruction of young trees in 
the Forest of Dean by the short-tailed field mouse (Mus 
arvalis), which was communicated to Paxton’s Hor- 
ticultural Register, by Mr. E. Murphy, and I think 
they will no longer doubt the value and importance of 
the checks placed on the inordinate multiplication of 
creatures apparently insignificant, but which in their ag- 
gregate attacks are really so formidable. 
After mentioning the appearance and gradual increase 
of the mice, Mr. Murphy goes on to say: “ Before the 
autumn of 1813 the mice had become so numerous that 
we could pick up four or five plants of the larger five- 
year-old oaks on a very small piece of ground, all bitten 
off just below the ground, between the roots and the 
stem ; and not only oak and ash, but elm, sycamore, and 
Spanish chestnut, of which, however, they did not appear 
to be so fond as of the two former. The hollies which 
had been cut down produced abundance of suckers, 
which were destroyed in the same manner; and some 
of them, which were as thick as a man’s leg, were 
barked all round four or five feet up the stem. The 
crab-tree, willow, furze, birch, spruce, in a word, every 
kind of tree, and even grass, particularly cock’s-foot 
grass, seemed equally acceptable to those voracious little 
creatures, till at length Lord Glenbervie became so 
alarmed about the final success of raising a forest, that 
we were instructed to pursue every means we could 
think of—by cats, dogs, owls, poison, traps, &c.; but all 
was to no purpose. 
“ At length a person hit upon a simple, and cma 
a very efficacious mode, Having, in digging a hole in 
