NATURAL HISTORY [Quadrupeds. 



Species 5. The Common Mouse. 



Mus Domesticus Vulgaris seu Minor, Rail Syn. Quad. 218. Mus Musculus, 

 Lin. Sys. S3. Brit. Zool. 105. Sib. Scot. 12. 



COMMON everywhere, except in a few of the lesser islands, 

 which our country sages tell us gravely are privileged, and 

 neither cat nor mouse will live in them, even though brought 

 thither. They add further, the earth of these isles brought 

 thence kills them wherever they are. When an honest gray- 

 headed man told me this, I desired to let me have a little of 

 the earth of his isle, to make the experiment, but this he 

 would by no means grant ; this would, in his opinion, take 

 away the virtue from the rest, and of consequence subject 

 them to the common fate of the rest of Orkney. However, 

 I suppose this earth is something a-piece with that of the mo- 

 nastic earth Mr Pennant speaks of in his Tour* ; perhaps re- 

 quires some ceremonies we are unacquainted with to make 

 it succeed. 



This is not the only vulgar error the Orcadians have fallen 

 into ; they stoutly affirm that, in a wet cold season, all their 

 bear shoots up in the form of wild oats-j-, and few of them 

 will be convinced to the contrary. They add, that if the next 

 spring prove mild, if again sown, it will put on the appear- 

 ance of barley ! That wild oats do spring in greater quanti- 



* Vide Tour through Scotland, p. 158. , 



t Vide Stillingfleet's Tracts, where he tells us very much the same thing of his 

 countrymen. 



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