VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAN. 77 
a number of Owles, as all the shire was able to yield, whereby the 
marsh-holders were shortly delivered from the vexation of the said 
mice. The like of this was also in Kent. 
This reads a little like a fable or legend, and we must be 
permitted to doubt the statement as to the cause of the 
“murraine ;” but the accuracy of the story, in the main, is 
corroborated by the records of later occurrences of a similar 
nature in the same region. Childrey also records this occur- 
rence in his Britannia Baconica, 1660, p. 14. 
Similar “sore plagues of strange mice” were experienced 
in Essex again in 1648, near Downham Market, Norfolk, in 
1745, and again in Gloucestershire and Hampshire in 1813- 
14.1. With regard to Norfolk, the following extract is of 
interest : — 
Once in about six or seven years, Hilgay, about one thousand acres, 
is infested with an incredible number of field mice, which, like locusts, 
would devour the corn of every kind. Invariably there follows a pro- 
digious flight of Norway Owls, and they tarry until the mice are entirely 
destroyed by them.? 
Notwithstanding that both the cause and remedy of these 
frequent outbreaks of field mice were apparent, the de- 
struction of their natural enemies by man still goes on. In 
1875-76 a noted outbreak of mice occurred in the borders of 
Roxburghshire, Selkirkshire, and Dumfriesshire, also in parts 
of Yorkshire. The abundance of the mice attracted Hawks, 
Owls, and foxes in unusual numbers. In 1892 an alarming 
increase of these field mice again occurred in the south of 
Scotland. In Roxburgh and Dumfries alone the plague was 
estimated to have extended over an area of eighty thousand to 
ninety thousand acres.? A preponderance of opinion among 
farmers was reported, tracing the cause of this outbreak to 
the scarcity of Owls, Hawks, weasels, and other so-called 
vermin. All these animals, and Crows also, are to be 
ranged among the natural enemies of mice. The state- 
1 See Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1892, p. 223, and papers there 
cited. 
? Gentleman’s Magazine, 1754, Vol. 24, p. 215. 
® Report to the Board of Agriculture on the Plague of Field Mice or Voles in 
the South of Scotland, 1892, 
