Nothing could keep them out, and if a score were killed, a hundred more supplied their place.

These mice were preyed upon by kestrel hawks, owls, and weasels; but at first they made little or no appreciable difference.

In a few years, however, the weasels, having such a superabundance of food, trebled in numbers, and in the same way the hawks, owls, and foxes increased.

There was then some relief, but even now at intervals districts are invaded, and the granaries and the standing corn suffer from these depredations.
This does not happen every year, but only at intervals, for it is noticed that mice abound very much more in some seasons than others.

The extraordinary multiplication of these creatures was the means of providing food for the cats that had been abandoned in the towns, and came forth into the country in droves.