66 THE MAMMALS, REPTILES, AND FISHES OF ESSEX. 



enemies. The Short-eared Owl (Otus brachyotos] is a great 

 destroyer of them. 



In another part of this work (see under Mus sylvaticus, p. 

 60), I have referred to plagues of mice in Essex. 



This subject has received attention from Mr. Miller Christy 

 (Birds of Essex, 1890, p. 157), and has been made the theme 

 of a paper by Mr. E. A. Fitch (Essex Nat., vol. iii., p. 178), 

 wherein several interesting quotations from old authors, re- 

 specting the depredations of the Short-tailed Vole, are given. 



Holinshed says (Chronicles, [1586], vol. iii., p. 1315) : 



" About Hallowtide last past [1580], in the marishes of Danesie 

 Hundred, in a place called Southminster, in the Countie of Essex, a 

 strange thing happened : there suddenlie appeared an infinite multi- 

 tude of mice, which, overwhelming the whole earth in the said 

 marishes, did sheare and gnaw the grasse by the roots, spoiling and 

 tainting the same with their venemous teeth, in such sort that the 

 cattell which grased thereon were smitten with a murreine, and died 

 thereof; which vermine by policie of man could not be destroied, 

 till now at the last it came to passe that there flocked together all about 

 the same marishes such a number of owles as all the shire was not 

 able to yeeld ; whereby the marsh holders were shortlie deliuered 

 from the vexation of the said mice." 



Stow, in his Annales (1605, p. 1166), makes the same 

 statement, evidently from the same authority. Speed also 

 relates ( Theatre of the Empire of Great Britiane, 1676, fo., p. 3 1 ) 

 the same occurrences, with his own quaint moralising upon it : 



" But lest we should exceed measure in commending, or the 

 people repose their trust in the soile ; behold what God can doe to 

 frustrate both in a moment, and that by His meanest creatures : 

 for in our age and remembrance, the year of Christ, 1581, an 

 Army of Mice so over-ran the marshes in Dengey Hundred, neer 

 unto South-minster in this County, that they shore the grass to the 

 very roots, and so tainted the same with their venomous teeth, that 

 a great Murrain fell upon the Cattel which grased thereon, to the 

 great loss of their owners." 



