CRAP. vil.] OWLS—RATS AND MICE. 67 
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 cestructive, 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 top- 
most shoot till the tree gradually withered away. ‘The quan- 
tities 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 undoubtedly 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 mouth 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 in 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 cleansing and washing 
can wipe away their traces? Nothing will keep out these 
animals when they have once established themselves in a house. 
They gnaw through stone, lead, or almost anything. They may 
be extirpated for a time, but you suddenly find yourself invaded 
by a fresh army. Some old rats, too, acquire such a carnivorous 
Fr 2 
