INCREASE AND DECREASE OF ANIMALS. 141 



They are the most tame and harmless of little 

 creatures ; and, taking shelter in the sheaves when 

 in the field, are often brought home with the crop, 

 and found in little shallow burrows on the ground 

 after the removal of a bean-rick. Those that remain 

 in the field form stores for the winter season, and 

 congregate in small societies in holes under some 

 sheltered ditch-bank. An old one, which I weighed, 

 was only one dram and five grains in weight. 



Mankind appear to be progressively increasing. 

 It was an original command of his Creator, and the 

 animals domesticated by him, and fostered for his 

 use, are probably multiplied in proportion to his 

 requirements ; but we have no reason to suppose 

 that this annual augmentation proceeds in a propor- 

 tionate degree with the wild creatures upon the sur- 

 face of the globe ; and we know that many of them 

 are yearly decreasing, and very many that once 

 existed have even become extinct. That there are 

 years of increase and decrease ordained for all the 

 inferior orders of creation, common observation 

 makes manifest. In the years 1819 and 1820, all 

 the country about us was overrun with mice ; they 

 harboured under the hassocks of our coarse grasses 

 (aira caespitosa), perforated the banks of ditches, 

 occasioned much damage by burrowing into our 

 potato heaps, and coursed in our gardens from bed 

 to bed even during daylight. The species were 

 the short- tailed meadow mouse, and the long- tailed 



