formerly mistaken for those of Rabbits. 443 



unsuccessful. None of the oldest officers in any of the Royal 

 Forests had ever observed or heard of such a thing, though with 

 the injury done by Mice in destroying acorns when sown or 

 planted, they were all familiarly acquainted. About thirty years 

 ago, several inclosures and plantations of oaks of considerable 

 extent had been executed by Mr. John Pitt, then Surveyor 

 General of Woods and Forests, in New Forest, which at first 

 had appeared to be very promising, but at that time several of 

 the underkeepers having been permitted to establish Rabbit 

 Warrens in different parts of the Forest near the new plantations, 

 and those animals breeding so fast, and in such numbers, it was 

 soon discovered, that the plants rapidly disappeared, and in a 

 few years, no vestige of them remained. This failure of so great 

 a national object, attracted a great deal of attention and observa- 

 tion at the time. Yet, from whatever cause, it was, till within 

 these few years, found impracticable to destroy the warrens, or 

 extirpate the rabbits. At last, however, I myself had the good 

 fortune to devise a method of doing so, which has proved com- 

 pletely effectual. Neither at the time when the destruction of 

 those plantations took place, nor when the extirpation of the 

 rabbits was afterwards so long under consideration, the possibility 

 that Mice, which must have at all times abounded in the furze 

 and fern covers in the Forest, might have had a share in the 

 destruction of the plants by barking them, seems ever to have 

 occurred, or at least, to have ever been mentioned by any body 

 on those occasions, though now, in consequence of our late obser- 

 vations, there can be little doubt of that having happened. One 

 of the under-keepers indeed, who had had the most productive 

 warren, alleged to me, last year, that he had, at the time, men- 

 tioned, that the injury was done by Mice ; but that nobody would 

 then listen to him, as there was such a general prejudice against 

 the rabbbits ; but I am very much inclined to think, that this was 

 an after-thought, as neither the deputy, nor any of the other 

 persons then conversant with the Forest, have any recollection of 

 his having said so. However, what you have lately learned to 

 have been observed in Lord Downe's Woods in Yorkshire, proves 



