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PART III. NATURAL HISTORY. 
ORIGINAL COISIMUNICATIONS. 
Article I. — On the Havock committed hy the Short-tailed 
Field Mouse, (Mus Arvalis) in the Plantations of the Forest 
of Dean. Communicated by Mr. E. Murphy, 
Mr. BilLingtox, in his work on Planting, published in 182;), gives 
us an account of" the. extraordinary havock connnitted on the young 
plantations in the Forest of Dean, by the Short-tailed Field Mouse, 
{Mtis Arcalis,) [11] and having sought in vain amongst such of the 
■writers, who have described this animal, as I had an opportunity of 
considting, fur any observations as to this propensity, am led to believe, 
that except those who have seen Mr. Billington's book, few have any 
notion of its powers in this respect. 
Mr. B. commences liis account of it by informing us, that he had 
frequently observed great cjuantities of small oak and ash plants, bar- 
ked, and bitten off, at al)out six inches from the ground; these attacks 
were, generally made in situations where the long grass and furze 
protected the depiedators ti-om their natural enemies, the hawks, 
o^^'ls, &c. "requiring, like most other mischief," he obsen-es, "to be 
done in the dark." 
"Before the autumn of 1813," he continues, "the mice had be- 
come so numerous, that we could pick up four or five plants, of the 
larger live j-ear old oaks, on a very small piece of ground, all bitten 
off", just within the gi'ound, between the roots and the stem ; and not 
only oak and ash, but elm, sycamore, and Spanish chesnut, of which, 
however, they did not appear to be so fond as of the tv.-o former. The 
hollies which had been cut down, produced abundance of suckers, 
which were destroyed in thesame manner, and some of them wliich 
were as thick as a man's leg, were barked all round, for four or five 
feet up the stem." The crab-tree, willow, furze, larch, spruce — in a 
word, every kind of tree, and even grass, particularly cocks-foot grass, 
seemed equally acceptable to these voracious little creatures; till at 
