Edifm'ial Note. 
237 
mice were paid for by Government ; nor were they extirpated till they had 
destroyed 1,700 acres, the astonishing number of 200,000 five-year-old 
oaks, together with an immense number of young seedlings. 
In Stowe’s Chronicle it is stated that — 
“ About Ilallontide last past (1581) in the marshes of Danesey Hundred, in 
a place called South Minster, in the county of Essex, there sodainlie appeared 
an infinite number of mice, which overwhelming the whole earth in the said 
marshes, did sheare and gnaw the grass by the rootes, spoyling and tainting 
the same with their venimous teeth in such sort, that the cattell which 
grazed thereon were smitten with a murraine and died thereof ; which ver- 
mine by policie of man could not be destroyed, till at the last it came to 
pass that there flocked together such 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.” 
Similar “ sore plagues of strange mice ” were experienced in 
Essex again in 1648, and near Downham Market, Norfolk, in 
1745. With regard to the last-named place, the following 
extract * is of interest : — 
“ Once in about six or seven years Helgay, about 1,000 acres, is infested 
with an incredible number of field mice which, like locusts, would devour the 
corn of every kind. Invariably there follows a prodigious flight of Norway 
owls, and they tarry until the mice are entirely destroyed by them. 
“ C. D. 
Market Downham, Mat/, 1764.” 
In addition to the methods, natural or artificial, of suppress- 
ing voles that have been described, reference may be made to 
the report that Professor Lofiler has recently been successful in 
combating a plague of field mice in Thessaly by means of a con- 
tagious virus. Details as to this raid upon the voles in the fields 
of Greece are not yet available, save that it is stated that bread 
crumbs charged with bacilli were scattered over the land. It 
will be remembered, however, that the attempt to cope in a 
somewhat similar manner with an allied troublesome rodent, the 
rabbit, in Australia, was not rewarded with success. 
The Departmental Committee of the Board of Agriculture, 
referred to on page 224, has been appointed to inquire into, and 
to report upon, the circumstances attending the existing plague 
of voles in some of the southern counties of Scotland ; and to 
ascertain, either experimentally or otherwise, whether any, and 
if so what, preventive and remedial measures can be adopted, 
and under what conditions such measures are likely to be of 
value. The Chairman of the Committee is Sir Herbert Max- 
well, Bart., M.P., and the Secretary is Mr. J. E. Harting. 
' Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 24, 1754, p. 215. 
VOL. III. T. S. — 10 
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