438 Lord Glenbervie on the devastations of Mice in Forests,- 



March, and he says, the whole of these had been caught in a few 

 days of open weather which intervened about that time. 



The total numbers caught in Dean Forest to the 8th March, 

 18*4, did not much exceed 30,000, and in New Forest, only 

 about 11,500 had been taken, up to the same period. 



On enquiring whether the Mice had ever actually been seen in 

 the act of barking the young trees, by any of the woodmen or 

 labourers, or, if not, what reasons there were for concluding with 

 certainty that they were the depredators, I found that Simmonds, 

 the Ratcatcher before mentioned, and Hobbes, one of the wood- 

 men, have asserted, that they have seen them gnawing the bark at 

 the height of three and four feet, to which distance they had 

 climbed from the ground. Besides this direct evidence, that the 

 mischief was done by Mice, and not by other animals, as Hares, 

 Rabbits, &c. (of the former of which, there are very few in either 

 of the Forests, and of the latter, none in either) ; the gradual 

 decrease of the evil where great numbers of Mice have been des- 

 troyed, — its total cessation in the parts first holed ; — the same 

 dung found in the holes where they have been caught as was ob- 

 served, in numberless instances, near the trees barked ; — their 

 being taken in the very runs close to which trees have been found 

 eaten through the roots ; — and, when some young shoots of oak 

 and holly have been cut and thrown into the pits, their having 

 begun to gnaw the bark immediately; — all these circumstances 

 taken together, amount in a manner to demonstration. The last- 

 mentioned experiment has been frequently repeated. 



In both Forests, two sorts of Mice have been observed, one the 

 short tailed, the other the long tailed Field Mouse. The former 

 (by far the most numerous, but particularly so in Dean Forest, 

 being there in the proportion of upwards of fifty to one long-tailed) 

 seems to be the Campagnol of Buffon, and Pennant gives that as 

 the French for his Meadow Mouse. The long tailed appears to 

 be Buffon's Mulot, which name Pennant gives as the French for 

 his own Field Mouse. Campagnol is the only species of short 

 tailed Mouse mentioned by Buffon, who says, he was the first 

 who applied that name to it in French, having adopted it from 

 the Italian, Canipagnolo (which word however in Italian, corres- 



