QUADRUPEDS. 67 



The small size, and delicate constitution of the mouse, renders this 

 no very difficult matter ; and if every former will follow my .id- 

 vice, his fields will be soon free. In the first instance, lest farmers 

 should suppose that I exaggerate the havoc which these animals 

 perpetrate, much of it possibly without the knowledge of the pro- 

 prietor of the soil, who vainly speculates mentally in conjectures as 

 to the cause of his grain-crop having proved so light, I shall pre- 

 sent them with the following statement, on the authority of Mr. 

 Maxwell, author of " Wild Sports of the West," who, if I mistake 

 not, quotes from Mr. Jesse. " 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, Gloucestershire, and in the New Forest, 

 Hampshire. Soon after the formation of these plantations, a sud- 

 den and rapid increase of mice took place in them, which threat- 

 ened 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 chesnuts, generally just below the surface of 

 the ground. Hollies, also, which were five and six feet high, were 

 barked round the bottom ; and in some instances the mice had 

 crawled up the tree, and were seen feeding on the bark of the up- 

 per branches. 



" The following account will show the numbers of mice caught 

 in the different enclosures in Dean Forest, in three months, from 

 September to January, with the number of acres, and the propor- 

 tion between the long and the short-tailed mice : 



Short-tailed Long-tailed. 



Acres. Mice. Mice. Total. 



Haywood enclosure, 418 12,850 8 12,858 



Oily Hill do. 41 1,161 11 1,172 



Crabtree Hill do. 372 7,851 7,851 



Park Hill do. 113 2,665 



Shut Castle do. 163 484 33 517 



Sallow Valley do. 386 1,361 



Barnhill do. 50 70 



2,665 



1,361 

 70 

 3 



Birchwood do. 50 3 



Whitemeadparkdo. 100 1,559 15 1,574 



Total Acres, 1,693 Total Mice, 28,071" 



Having now satisfied you of the reality of this nuisance, let us 

 consider some of the modes in which it may be removed. 



In " British Husbandry," vol. ii., p. 552, it is stated that the tops 

 of last year's shoots of furze, chopped small, and sown with the 



