DISAPPEARANCE OF SHORT-TAILED FIELD VOLE 197 



ascertained that dead voles were observed on the surface at 

 Howpasley, but not in considerable numbers. A number of 

 dead were also seen on Whitrope, on Middlegill, and on 

 Barlae ; but many of those on Barlae were marked on the 

 back of the head, as if they had been killed. Mr. William 

 G. Steuart, Middlegill, mentions that towards the close of 

 the plague there, the animals looked thin and lanky. Mr. 

 Thomas Glendinning, farmer, Fingland, however, states, 

 with reference to his farm, that, though dead voles had not 

 been noticed on the surface, during their disappearance he 

 had sometimes kicked out nests with the dead inside : in 

 some instances only one, in others two or three. This points 

 to some epidemic ; as wild animals affected by disease or 

 sickness, as a rule, conceal themselves and die in places where 

 they entirely escape our notice : a fact which renders it most 

 difficult to obtain data regarding an epidemic theory, which 

 some of my naturalist friends are inclined to favour as the 

 cause of the somewhat sudden end of the plague. Their 

 opinion, however, is not based upon specific information, but 

 upon the known fact that such vast increases of life in a 

 single species invariably result in an outbreak of disease : a 

 plague among plaguers it would be in this case. 



But it is the almost unanimous opinion of farmers and 

 shepherds that the disappearance is due, in a great measure, 

 to the action of " natural enemies " ; stress being laid on the 

 value of the Owl, Kestrel, Rook, and Black-headed Gull, and 

 locally to the Buzzard among birds, and to the Stoat and the 

 Weasel among mammals. Of the birds, the Short-eared 

 Owl was almost entirely a stranger ; the Kestrel, partly so. 

 The Owl first appeared in numbers in the autumn of 1891. 

 It bred early in the spring of 1892, and again in the late 

 spring or summer of that year, and reared an abnormal 

 number of young. The Kestrel also remained in greatly 

 increased numbers, and multiplied. The consequence was, 

 that at the close of last summer the Vole had, in addition to 

 its native enemies, a most formidable and rapacious host, 

 foreign to the district, to contend with. 1 I was long 



1 For much valuable and interesting information concerning the Short-eared 

 Owl and the Kestrel in the vole-plague district, see Mr. Adair's paper in the 

 "Annals," 1891, pp. 219-231. EDS. 



