THE LONG-TAILED FIELD MOUSE. 339 



their roots, and generally just below the surface of the ground. 

 Holly bushes, five and six feet high, were barked round the 

 bottom, and in some instances the micehad crawled up them and 

 were even feeding on the bark of the upper branches. In the 

 reports made to government on the subject, it appears that the 

 roots had been eaten through wherever they obstructed the run 

 of the mice, but that the bark of the trees constituted their 

 food. This was ascertained by confining a number of mice in 

 cages, and supplying them with the fresh roots and bark of 

 trees, whence it was found that they fed greedily on the latter, 

 and left the roots untouched. Traps were set, poison laid, and 

 cats turned out, but nothing appeared to lessen their numbers, 

 until pit-falls were dug about twenty yards asunder, in some 

 of the Dean Forest plantations, being about twelve in each 

 acre of ground. These pits were from eighteen to twenty 

 inches deep, and two feet one way, and a half the other, and 

 they were much wider at the bottom than the top, being 

 excavated hollow under, so that the animal when once in, 

 could not easily get out again. In these pits, at least thirty 

 thousand mice were caught in the course of three or four 

 months, that number having been counted out and paid for 

 by the proper officers of the forest. But it was calculated that 

 a much greater number were taken out of the pits by stoats, 

 weasels, kites, hawks, owls, crows, jays, and magpies, for as 

 the mice increased, so did the predacious birds, of which at 

 last there was an incredible number. It appeared from the 

 weekly reports of the deputy surveyor of the New Forest, that 

 about as many were destroyed there, allowing the same calcu- 

 lation for those eaten by vermin : and in addition to which, it 

 should be mentioned, that these mice were found to eat each 

 other when their food fell short in winter. Putting these 

 circumstances together, the total number of mice destroyed 

 in the two forests, probably amounted to more than two 

 hundred thousand."* 



Dr. Forster says, that " field mice are found in great numbers 

 * Abridged from Jesse's Gleanings in Natural History. 



z 2 



