122 RATS AND MICE IN ESSEX.
ance of Messrs Walsh, Helyer and Gowers, and their dogs, upwards of 400 rats
were killed.—"Essex Standard," 3, v. 90.
GREAT EASTON.—On a farm held offhand by Mr. Pomeroy, at Great
Easton, an extraordinary massacre of mice took place the other day, when three
stacks of wheat were threshed out. The stacks were estimated to yield about
120 qrs., but it was soon found that the result would be much short of that
quantity, owing to the extraordinary ravages of mice. The boys of the village
school were then armed with sticks, and several thousand mice were killed by
them. The exact number is not known, but an eyewitness speaks of them as
"thousands and thousands." The yield of the stacks was only 60 qrs.—"Essex
Standard," 17, v. 90.
A Finchingfield farmer writes as follows :—
" The pest of mice about this neighbourhood is prodigious. Almost every
farm homestead, especially if there be a few wheat stacks remaining, is swarming
with the vermin. I can give you one instance. Last Monday I began threshing
a stack of wheat, the produce of nine acres. Finding it was full of mice, I
engaged four boys to kill them. These boys, with the help of the men on the
stack and others, killed over 3,000, or, by measure, seven pecks and a quarter.
Adding to this 25 per cent, for escapes, &c., will make the sum total of 3,750, an
almost incredible number, but I believe, far below the actual amount. Now
within a radius of 50 yards from this stack I have five more, four wheat about
the same size, and one a stack of wheat and barley rakings. Should each of these
contain the same proportion, I am now feeding about 18,750—rather too many
animals for me to agree with the old saw 'that stock is as good as money.'—
W. F. C."—"Essex Herald," 29, iv. 90.
In commenting upon the Finchingfield "preliminary engage-
ment," the Editor of the "Essex Standard" writes :—
" The mus is anything but ridiculus when it turns up in its pecks and its thou-
sands in this way. It is declared that some species of rats and mice are so pro-
lific that from a single pair (if a pair can be single) more than 1,000,000
descendants can be propagated in two years."
The 22-oz. rat caught on my uncle's farm at Widford Hall is
noteworthy; the heaviest I have weighed falls short of this by half
an ounce ; this was a fine fellow and was caught with 55 others—
many nearly as big—on Northey on April 17th last.
I do not know that I can add much to these records and have but
two other noteworthy ones from private sources.
Mr. Herbert Hicks, of Coggeshall Hall, paid for 3,200 mice, at the
rate of one penny per score, killed out of two stacks, and it is quite
reasonable to say that certainly as many escaped or were smashed up
and lost in the straw, cavings and chaff.
Mr. James Taber, of Rivenhall, only had ten quarters (80 bush.)
of wheat out of a stack, estimated to produce certainly 40 to 50
quarters, and as much as 17 quarters (136 bush.) of mice grindings.