REPORT ON PLAGUE OF FIELD-VOLES IN SCOTLAND 135 



but they hold a very strong opinion that the best chance 

 of averting its disastrous effects would have been for all 

 interested in the ownership and occupation of land to have 

 combined for the destruction of the voles when they were first 

 observed to increase. 



Burning bog-land, bent, and heather, seems to be effective 

 in driving the voles off the portions burnt. Mr. Carthew 

 Yorstoun, Commissioner on the Duke of Buccleuch's Lang- 

 holm estate, stated that he had written to every tenant of a 

 hill farm in 1892, asking if an extension of the time for 

 burning would be an advantage. Three -fourths of those 

 written to replied in the affirmative, and received permission 

 to burn from 1/j.th April (the usual limit) to 28th. The 

 remaining fourth said they had already burned as much as 

 the ground would stand. 



It is not profitable to burn all the rough pasture on a 

 farm, as the sheep depend on it for sustenance when snow is 

 on the ground. 



Poison has been tried with partial success. Samples of 

 grain treated with strychnine, and coloured red to prevent 

 mistakes, were supplied from Germany and submitted. It is 

 stated that good results were obtained with this in limited 

 areas ; for instance, the tenant of Middlegill, near Moffat, 

 holding a farm of 3000 acres, applied this poison to a 

 meadow of 10 acres, and thereby partly destroyed the voles. 

 Sir Walter Elliot quotes a letter from Sir Robert Menzies, 

 who describes how he got rid of the voles which infested 

 140 acres of Scots fir plantation, by laying down half a ton 

 of half-inch drain-pipes, in each of which was placed a tea- 

 spoonful of oatmeal mixed with phosphorus. But for 

 obvious reasons, the application of poisoned grain over hill 

 farms extending to many thousands of acres, even if practic- 

 able, would be attended with much risk to other forms of 

 life. 



Pitfalls, i.e. holes cut in the ground with precipitous 

 sides, are equally out of the question when a large tract of 

 country has to be dealt with. But they have proved effectual 

 when plantations of limited extent have been attacked. 

 The forester at Branxholm within a week exterminated the 

 voles infesting a plantation of six acres, by digging pits I 2 



