Mice in the New Forest and the Forest of Dean, 435 



hollies that had been cut down, which they have barked so uni- 

 versally as to destroy them entirely on about fifty acres of Hay- 

 wood inclosure, which are now looking brown and withered, as if 

 they had been nipped by the frost ; and I fear that when there are 

 no hollies left (and it seems to me that they will very soon destroy 

 them totally) the young trees will suffer more considerably. 



*' As I am quite at a loss as to the method of extirpating them 

 in such situations, I will thank you to inform me, whether you 

 have any information which is likely to be useful in this case, 

 contained in the different answers to the queries proposed by Lord 

 Glenbervie on this subject, and that you will communicate it to 

 me. The land, as you know, is covered with long grass, fern, &c. 

 under which those Mice have runs or roads, and they are seldom 

 seen above ground. They are the short-tailed reddish-coloured 

 Field Mice." 



On receiving that letter, I was under the necessity of acquaint- 

 ing Mr. Davies, the Deputy Surveyor, (whose name I am happy 

 in an opportunity of mentioning, in order to bear testimony to his 

 skill, diligence, and integrity, in an office in which those qualities 

 are peculiarly requisite) that the source to which he referred, 

 afforded no such information as he expected. Having however 

 heard about this time of the success of the method of Mr. Ben- 

 jamin Broad, of Herefordshire, in the destruction of Rats and 

 Mice, I desired that Mr. Davies would correspond with him 

 on the subject, and if he saw any reasonable prospect of advantage 

 in employing the means he recommended for the destruction of 

 Field Mice, to engage him to go over to Dean Forest, and make 

 a trial of his process under his own superintendance and direction. 

 This was accordingly done. Mr. Broad went to Dean Forest, 

 and after trying his peculiar baits for three days in Haywood In- 

 closure, which was the most infested, without any success, he gave 

 up the attempt as hopeless, ascribing the failure to the different 

 nature of the food of these Mice, from that of those he had been 

 accustomed to deal with, which appear to have been the common 

 house Mice. 



In the beginning of September, 1813, I had myself an oppor- 

 tunity of personally observing in Dean Forest, and in a wee^ 



