76 WILD SPORTS ^F THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



house-mouse, the short-eared mouse, and that beautiful bright- 

 eyed kind the long-tailed 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 topmost 

 shoot till the tree gradually withered away. The quantities 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 un- 

 doubtedly 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 jnouth 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 itt 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 



^ This mouse is very fond of flesh, frequently eating the dead rabbits, etc. , used for 

 bait to vermin-traps. The dormouse frequently builds a nest in the branches of copse- 

 wood.— C. St. J. 



* Mus rattus (black rat) J believe is extinct in Moray. Twenty years ago plentiful 

 (1830).— C. St. J. 



