38 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 



predatioDs is not of that extent which I have assumed 

 as probable. Let such carefully read the following 

 authentic account of the destruction of young trees in 

 the Forest of Dean by the short-tailed field mouse (Mus 

 arvalis), which was communicated to Paxton's Hor- 

 ticultural Register, by Mr. E. Murphy, and I think 

 they will no longer doubt the value and importance of 

 the checks placed on the inordinate multiplication of 

 creatures apparently insignificant, but which in their ag- 

 gregate attacks are really so formidable. 



After mentioning the appearance and gradual increase 

 of the mice, Mr. Murphy goes on to say : " Before the 

 autumn of 1813 the mice had become so numerous that 

 we could pick up four or five plants of the larger five- 

 year-old oaks on a very small piece of ground, all bitten 

 off just below the ground, between the roots and the 

 stem ; and not only oak and ash, but elm, sycamore, and 

 Spanish chestnut, of which, however, they did not appear 

 to be so fond as of the two former. The hollies which 

 had been cut down produced abundance of suckers, 

 which were destroyed in the same manner ; and some 

 of them, which were as thick as a man's leg, were 

 barked all round four or five feet up the stem. The 

 crab-tree, willow, furze, birch, spruce, in a word, every 

 kind of tree, and even grass, particularly cock's-foot 

 grass, seemed equally acceptable to those voracious little 

 creatures, till at length Lord Glenbervie became so 

 alarmed about the final success of raising a forest, that 

 Me were instructed to pursue every means we could 

 think of by cats, dogs, owls, poison, traps, &c. ; but all 

 was to no purpose. 



" At length a person hit upon a simple, and eventually 

 a very efficacious mode. Having, in digging a hole in 



