182
NOTE.
in Denge-Hundred, near Southminster, that they eat up the Grass to the very
Roots, and so poisoned it with their teeth, that a great Murrain fel upon the
Cattle that grazed there. But at length a great number of strange painted Owles
came (no man knows whence) and devoured all the Mice. The like vexation
was at the same time in Kent, saith Stow, It is reported, that in 1648 there
happened the like again in Essex. But of this we have discoursed somewhat
largely already in Cornwall." 9
Lastly, in the "East Anglian" for January, 1867 (vol. iii, pp. 57-8),
I find the following extract from Lilly's "Merlinvs Anglicvs Junjor,"
a little work which I have not seen :—
"Many Meddow-Mice which did eat up the Grass in some parts of Norfolk.
In the month of November last, 1660, in some parts of Norfolk, were such
Multitudes of meddow-mice, that in many hundred Acres together, one could
hardly set down his foot without treading on them ; they did eat up the roots of
the grass, and in one Mr. Spelman's ground, as himself confest, they have spoiled
him so much grass as used to keep 130 fat cattle, he feared, also, he should be
damnified by them £300 in a field of Coleseed.
The Paralel.
We find that in the same month of Novem. Anno, 1580, at South-Minster in
Dansey hundred, in Essex, there appeared an infinite number of Mice, which
overwhelmed the whole Earth in those Marches, and did shere and gnaw the grass
to the roots, upon it followed a great murrain of Cattle, which afterwards fed in
those grounds.—Stow. Chron., p. 689.10 The year following, Queen Elizabeth
was much disturbed with Jesuites, of which severall were executed."
Erratic Boulders in N.W. Essex.—The 16th Report of the Committee
appointed by the British Association for recording the position, &c., of Erratic
Blocks, contains an important paper by the Rev. A. W. Rowe, F.G.S., on
Boulders found within a radius of six miles from the village of Felstead, including
Little Saling, Great Waltham, Braintree, and Dunmow (Reports, Brit. Assoc.
1888, pp. 114—121). Mr. Rowe gives many details as to size, surface, and
petrological characters of the boulders recorded by him.
9 The reference to the subject under Cornwall is as follows (Brit. Baconica, pp. 14—15) :—
"We read in our Chronicles that at the time when field Mice did so swarm in Denge Hundred in
Essex, in the yeare 1580, that they eat up all the roots of the grass, &c., a great number of Owles,
of strange and various colours, assembled and devoured them all; and after they had made an
end of their prey, they took their flight back again from whence they came. The reason of
which I conjecture to be the same with the former. For that which produced these Mice in that
great abundance, was an extream dripping warm year, and a mild and moist winter, as countrey
men assure us, & Keppler himself belives is the constant cause of that Vermine. Now because
(though God can, yet) nature cannot extend the same extremity of weather all over the world;
but (as is most probable) when there is an extremity of warmth and moisture in one countrey, there
is as great an extremity of cold and drought in another (even as we see that the reason why it
flows in one Fort, is because it ebbs in another ; the reason, I say, or at least the causa sine qua
non) hence it follows, that the extremity of warmth and moisture that we had then in England,
could not have been without as great an extremity of cold and drought in some other countreys,
which (because an enemy to generation, especially to that of this Vermine) made them fail most
certainly in those other countreys, whose Nature and temper is apt to produce them more con-
stantly and abundantly, and (it may be) almost alwayes. Whence these painted Owls (strangers
to us, but not to those countreys, where the abundance and constancy of food makes them daily
Guests) very likely were forced by hunger to seek out food, which provident Nature had provided
for them in other places, where their stay was no longer then till they had spent their provision,
and then ad pristina praesepia. All which these flying Pilgrims might very well do, without any
great notice how and whence they came, and whither they went, because they are birds of night,
and travel onely in the dark." Then follow some general remarks on migration of birds.
10 cf. Stow's "Annales of England" (1605), p. 1166.