268 FIELD VOLE. 



and sometimes insects ; but is also met with in 

 corn-fields, especially in autumn, as well as in woods 

 dud thickets, where it gnaws the bark, sometimes 

 doing much injury to young plantations. It is 

 more rarely met with in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of man than the Wood Mouse, but like that 

 species, it also frequents gardens and orchards. It 

 produces from five to seven or eight young several 

 times in the season, and, under favourable circum- 

 stances, increases with astonishing rapidity. The 

 following narrative, by Mr Jesse, will afford an idea 

 of the ravages sometimes committed by Mice, or 

 the smaller species of the genera Arvicola and Mus. 

 " An extraordinary instance of the rapid increase 

 of Mice, and of the injury they sometimes do, oc- 

 curred a few years ago in the new plantations made 

 by order of the Crown in Dean Forest, Gloucester- 

 shire, and in the New Forest, Hampshire. Soon 

 after the formation of these plantations, a sudden 

 and rapid increase of Mice took place in them, 

 which threatened destruction to the whole of the 

 young plants. Vast numbers of these were killed ; 

 the Mice having eaten through the roots of five- 

 year old oaks and chestnuts, generally just below 

 the surface of the ground. Hollies also, which 

 were five or six feet high, were barked round the 

 bottom ; and in some instances the Mice had crawled 

 cp the tree, and were seen feeding on the bark of 

 rfie upper branches. In the reports made to Go- 

 vernment on the subject, it appeared that the roots 

 had been eaten through wherever they obstructed 



