A Strange Abode.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 219, 10 September 1887, Page 6

A Strange Abode.

Perhaps there are few incidents in the whole history of Craniology which surpass in singularity a discovery made in the paiish church of Whiichurch, Salop, a few years back. It was long supposed that the remains of the great Talbot, first earl of Shrewsbury, the greatest soldier of the time of Henry VI., who was killed at Chantillon, at the age of eighty, were interred beneath the porch of the church. Originally the body of the doughty old warrior was buried at Rouen, but fifty years after, Sir Gilbert Talbot his descendant, with loving revtrence had it conveyed to his native Salop, and there re-interred in the parish of Whitchurch. Nearly four centuries later, when the sacred edifice was undergoing repairs, there was discovered beneath the recumbent figure surmounting the old earl's tomb, a wooden box containing his bones, each separately and carefully wrapped in cere cloth. The rector immediately had the precious relics conveyed to the vestry, where they were reverently laid upon a table prepared for them, m J the whole anatomically an.i. o tU with his own hands. The representatives of the old eatl's family (the present earls of Shrewsbury and Brownlow) were at once communicated with, and it was decided lo replace the bones beneath the monumental tomb as soon as a sarcophagus could be prepared for them. It was then that a singular discovery was made. Upon a close examination of the great Talbot's skull, what was at first regarded as some preservative herb filling the cavity, was found to be a mouse's nest ; and a further examination revealed the fact that it contained the skeleton of a full grown mouse, besides those of several young ones. The fatal gash in the side of the cranium which had terminated the old warrior's life, had been used by these nibbling, squeaking little creatures as a means of ingress and egress possibly for generations. The brain that had once directed armies, and so often felt the exultant throb of victory, and the re-echo of the clash of arms, had been selected as the home, the procreant cradle, and at last the tomb of a colony of minature rodents. The singularity of the discovery was heightened by the fact of the nest being found to consist partly of an old English prayer-book nibbled to fragments. It is to a certain extent consolatory to know that the mice who occupied the head of one of our doughtiest generals as a home, were not imported from Rouen j but were, from this circumstance, undoubtedly honest, thoroughbred English church-mice.