A Plague of Mice. 
151 
of a dun colour and will run on the edge of a sword and 
sleep on the point.” The dormouse from its awakening 
from sleep with the return of the spring was sometimes 
employed in ecclesiastical art as a type of the resurrection. 
Stow mentions, in his Chronicles of England — 
“ a great plague of mice in the marshes of Dainsey, in Essex, which 
gnawed the grass, tainting the same with their venomous teeth, 
so that the cattle were poisoned and died.” 
The inhabitants of that county were in some perplexity 
how to deal with their small enemies, till from all the 
country round gathered a large number of owls, and 
to the great delight of the farmers soon cleared the 
marshes. 
The odd simile, “ As drunk as a mouse,” dates back 
to the time of Chaucer. In the Knight's Tale (line 402) 
w T e read— 
“ We faren as he that drunke is as a mous.” 
Lemming-. 
Mr. Charles Mackay would fain save the little animal 
from such discredit by a suggestion that the expression is 
taken from the Gaelic. The word miosa, in this language, 
means the worse or worst, consequently the phrase implies 
simply a very advanced state of inebriation {Notes and 
Queries , 5th series, vol. v. p. 394). 
Olaus Magnus was the first to notice the curious 
periodic migrations of the Norway Lemming. 
These animals sometimes make their appear¬ 
ance in locust-like swarms. They march steadily across 
the country, allowing no obstacle to stop them,, destroying 
the crops in their route. Their numbers are thinned by 
foxes and ermines, but nothing daunted they pursue their 
way to the sea-shore and finally perish in the waves. 
Beavers were at one time inhabitants of this country. 
Camden, in his description of Britain, states 
that the Tivey, in Cardiganshire, was 
Beaver. 
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