250 HOW TO GROW GOOD fences. 



upon the offending creature upon the same principle 

 as pertains to the present day in the case of a hite hy 

 a dog — namely, that the bitten subject is not safe from 

 the direst calamities so long as the author of the 

 mischief is alive ; and acting upon this, there are few 

 persons in rural districts who would not demand the 

 death of a dog by whom they may have been bitten, 

 and this not as a measure of precaution, to prevent 

 the like occurrence happening again, but as the first 

 thing to be done to ensure a safe cure. So with a 

 " mouse-crope " subject: action was at once taken 

 against the mouse, but this through the agency of 

 the " shrew-ash," which potent remedy is thus 

 described by Gilbert White, in his charming " Natural 

 History of Selborne : "• — - 



Now, a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when 

 gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the 

 pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over 

 the part affected ; for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so 

 baneful and deleterious a nature, that -wherever it creeps over a 

 beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with 

 cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. 

 Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our 

 provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when 

 properly medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew- 

 ash was made thus : — Into the body of the tree a deep hole was 

 bored with an augur, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in 

 alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations, 

 long since forgotten. 



That the shrew-mouse was generally held in the 

 greatest dread, there is no doubt ; but, we find in Dor- 

 setshire, where this notion still prevails, that the idea 

 of mischief is not confined to the shrew, but is be- 

 lieved of any mouse. We had a steer in one of our 



