At one time, if a cow or sheep offered any symptom of paralysis or injury, more particularly of the hind-quarters, the creature was said to be “mouse-crope,” for which were several popular remedies, which were used by way of direct applications, such as a liberal application of rods of wytch-hazel, drawing twigs of mountain-ash or rowan-tree over the affected parts; but the more general plan of action was to operate upon the offending creature upon the same principle as pertains to the present day in the case of a bite by a dog—namely, that the bitten subject is not safe from the direst calamities so long as the author of the mischief is alive; and acting upon this, there are few persons in rural districts who would not demand the death of a dog by whom they may have been bitten, and this not as a measure of precaution, to prevent the like occurrence happening again, but as the first thing to be done to ensure a safe cure. So with a “mouse-crope” subject: action was at once taken against the mouse, but this through the agency of the “shrew-ash,” which potent remedy is thus described by Gilbert White, in his charming “Natural History of Selborne:”— Now, a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected; for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when properly medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus:—Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an augur, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations, long since forgotten.