178 HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE SHORT-TAILED FIELD VOLE
previously mentioned, there was a bed of Boulder Clay at the foot of Danbury
Hill, extending from near Baddow round to the south side, which he believed to
be of the age of the Cromer Lower Glacial series. It certainly passed under the
Middle Glacial gravel. He did not approve of the Geological Survey leaving
questions of correlation untouched and producing a mere lithological map, and, as
the survey of Suffolk had, in a large measure, confirmed Mr. Searles Wood's view
of the existence of patches of the Lower Glacial series far to the south of the
Norfolk area, he regretted that a distinctive colour had not been adopted to denote
which Boulder Clays and loams were of this age and which of the Upper Glacial
series. Another piece of work for the local geologists was the tracing a line of
separation between the early Post Glacial gravels of Boreham and the Middle
Glacial gravels on to which, by denudation of the Boulder Clay, they overlap. On
the edge of Sheet 1 N.E. (exhibited) there was shown a series of patches of the
Boulder Clay outcropping between the Middle Glacial gravel on the south and the
Post Glacial gravel on the north. The boundary between the gravels must run
from one to another of these patches, but it had not been shown on the Survey
map. In conclusion he begged personally to thank Mr. Christy for his most
interesting and able paper.
HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE SHORT-TAILED
FIELD VOLE AND SHORT-EARED OWL IN
ESSEX.
By EDWARD A. FITCH, F.L.S., F.E.S., President E.F.C.
[Read at the Field Meeting at Burnham and Southend, July 12th, 1889.]
Both to the archaeologist and to the naturalist the Dengie Hundred
of Essex has hitherto been almost terra incognita, and on the occasion
of our Club's first visit to this comparatively new area of country I
have been tempted to lay before the members the following interest-
ing items of what may be termed "archaeological zoology."
The Short-tailed Field Vole, or Meadow Mouse (Arvicola agrestis,
L.), well-known probably to all our country members, is in Britain
tar the most destructive of all the smaller rodents. Bell says :1 "Of
all the smaller Rodentia which, by their depredations in the fields
or the woods, may be considered as injurious to mankind, there is
not one which produces such extensive destruction as this little
animal, when its increase, as is sometimes the case, becomes
multitudinous."
Edward Jesse relates2 an extraordinary instance of the rapid in-
crease of mice, and of the injury they sometimes do. The young
plantations in Dean Forest, Gloucestershire, and New Forest, Hamp-
1 Bell's "History of British Quadrupeds," 1st ed. (1837), pp. 325-6.
2 Jesse's "Gleanings in Natural History," 1st ser. (1832), pp. 166—174.