CHAP, vii.] OWLS RATS AND MICE. 67 



field-mouse. The last is very destructive to the garden-seeds, 

 and without the assistance of the owls would be kept under with 

 great difficulty. The large-headed, short-eared mouse is not so 

 pretty an animal, but equally destructive, taking great delight in 

 sweet peas and other seeds : they also climb the peach-trees and 

 destroy great quantities of the fruit. A fig-tree this year, when 

 its winter covering of straw was taken off, was found to be 

 entirely barked and all the shoots eaten off by these mice. The 

 shrew-mouse has the same propensity for barking trees. I have 

 known the former kind, indeed, destroy Scotch fir-trees of the 

 height of fifteen or sixteen feet by nibbling and peeling the top- 

 most shoot till the tree gradually withered away. The quan- 

 tities of acorns and other seeds that the long-tailed field-mice 

 hoard up for their winter use show that, were they allowed to 

 increase, the mischief they would do would be incalculable ; 

 and undoubtedly the best way of getting rid of all mice is to 

 preserve and encourage owls. The long-tailed field-mouse has 

 great capabilities as a digger, and in making his hole carries up 

 an incredible quantity of earth and gravel in a very short time. 

 When the weather is cold they close up the mouth of their hole 

 with great care. They seem to produce their young not under- 

 ground, but in a comfortable, well-built nest, formed in the 

 shape of a ball, with a small entrance on one side. As it is 

 built of the same material as the surrounding herbage, and the 

 entrance is closed up, it is not easily seen. 



Everybody must be glad to encourage any animal that kills a 

 rat. and the owls are the most determined enemies to this, the 

 most disgusting and obnoxious animal which we have in this 

 country. For what can be so sickening as to know that these 

 animals come direct from devouring and revelling in the foulest 

 garbage in the drains of your house, to the larder where your 

 own provisions are kept ; and, fresh from their stinking and filthy 

 banquet, run over your meat with their clammy paws, and gnaw 

 at your bread with their foul teeth ? what cleansing and washing 

 can wipe away their traces? Nothing will keep out these 

 animals when they have once established themselves in a house. 

 They gnaw through stone, lead, or almost anything. They may 

 be extirpated for a time, but you suddenly find yourself invaded 

 by a fresh army. Some old rats, t(x>, acquire such a carnivorous 



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