Vermin of the Farm. 
223 
markable tban the way in which it periodically swarms, over- 
running particular districts, and completely devastating the pas- 
tures. Many such “ plagues of mice ” are on record. Childrey in 
his “ Britannia Baconica,” 1660, relates (p. 14) that in 1580 an 
extraordinary swarm of field-mice appeared in Denge Hundred, 
Essex, and ate up all the roots of the grass. 
“ A great number of owles,” be says, “ of strange and various colours [pro- 
bably the short-eared owl] assembled and devoured them all, and after tliey 
had made an end of their prey, they took flight back again from whence they 
came.” 
In the years 1813-14, another such plague of mice occurred 
in Gloucestershire and Hampshire. Particulars of this visitation 
will be found in an essay, entitled “ An account of the unexam- 
pled devastations committed by Field-mice in the Forest of 
Dean in Gloucestershire, and in the New Forest in Hampshire 
during the years 1813 and 1814. In a letter to the late Right 
Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., P.R.S., from the late Right 
Hon. Sylvester Douglas, Lord Glenbervie.” 
From this account, which is dated June 30, 1814, and is 
printed in the first volume of The Zoological Journal (1825), pp. 
433-444, it appears that more than 30,000 field-mice were 
caught in the Forest of Dean by various methods, and 11,500 
in the New Forest. The species caught were both the long- 
tailed Mus sylvaticus and the short-tailed Arvicola agrestis, the 
latter most numerous, being in the proportion of fifty to one.* * 
The methods employed were (1) the turning out of a number 
of cats ; (2) clearing the ground, so as to expose the mice more 
effectually to their natural enemies ; (3) poisoned meal made up 
into paste balls and scattered about ; ( 4 ) traps of seven or eight 
patterns ; and (5) pitfalls, wider at the bottom than at the top. 
In 1874-5 a similar plague, though less serious and extensive, 
occurred in Wensleydale, where a single farmer reported that 
“ in a field of about sixty acres in extent, there were, without 
exaggeration, thousands of mice, which did much damage to the 
grass. ^ 
This visitation seems to have lasted for at least two years, 
for in 1878, at the meeting of the British Association, Sir 
Walter Elliott reported that in the spring of 1876 the short- 
tailed vole appeared in such numbers in the hill pasture farms 
of the border districts between England and Scotland, and parts 
of Yorkshire and Wensleydale, as to destroy the grazing-ground 
* Besides the account above referred to, see also that given by Jesse in 
his Gleanings in, Natural Histonj Series), pp. 176-184, and St. John, 
Natural History of the Highlands, p. C7. 
* See The Field, June 24, 1874. 
