THE HOtrSB. 



be effected. Holes, therefore, were made about twenty yards 

 asunder in some of the Dean Forest plantations, being about 

 twelve in each acre of ground. These holes were from eighteen 

 to twenty inches in depth, and two feet one way by one and a 

 half the other ; and they wer« much wider at the bottom than 

 the top, being excavated, or hollowed under, so that the animal 

 when once in coxdd not easily get out again. In these holes 

 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. 



It was, however, calculated that a much greater number 

 were taken out of the holes by stoats, weasels, kites, hawks, 

 and owls ; and also by crows, magpies, jays, &c. The cats, 

 also, which had been turned out resorted to these holes to feed 

 on the mice ; and, in one instance, a dog was seen greedily 

 eating them. In akother an owl had so gorged itself, that he 

 was secured by one of the keepers. As the mice increased in 

 number so did the birds of prey, of which, at last, there were 

 an incredible number. In addition to the quantity above men- 

 tioned, a vast number of mice were destroyed in traps, by 

 poison, and by animals and birds, and it was found that in the 

 winter, when their food fell short, they ate each other, so that 

 in Dean Forest alone the number which was destroyed in 

 various ways could not be calculated at lesd than one hundred 

 thousand, and in the New Forest the mortality was equally 

 great. These calculations are made from the official weekly 

 returns of the deputy-surveyors of the forest, and other 

 sources. 



Next and last is a legend showing how insignificant is 

 the might of the most powerful man in the eyes of his just 

 Maker ; and how that, if He wills it, the mightiest man in his 

 realm may flee before a httle mouse, and that the httle mouse 

 may slay him, and pick his arrogant bones : — 



" It happened in the year 914 that there was an exceeding 

 great famine in Gtermany, at which time Otho, snmamed the 

 Great, was emperor. One Hatto, an abbot of FuLda, was arch- 

 bishop of Mentz, of the bishops after Crescens and Orescentius 

 the two-and-thirtieth, of the archbishops after Saint Bonifacius 

 the thirteenth. This Hatto, in the time of this great famine afore- 

 mentioned, when he saw the poor people of the country exceed- 

 ingly oppressed with famine, assembled a great company of 

 them into a bam, and, like a most accursed and mercilesg 

 catiffe, burnt up those poor innocent souls, that were so far 



