42 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



creatures feeding, enabled me to cope with the enemy with more 

 success. One evening, I observed a slight movement among the 

 grass. Standing quite still, I found it was one of the Voles feeding 

 on something like the head of a dandelion ; after a short time it 

 shifted its position a little way, and cut over a dandelion with ripe 

 seed on it ; as soon as the stem fell it commenced to feed on the 

 dandelion seed. I lost no time in acting on the information thus 

 gained ; getting some ripe heads of dandelions and cutting off the 

 down, I steeped them in a solution of strychnine, and laid them in 

 the runs of the Voles. Next morning I had the satisfaction of finding 

 several of the creatures stark and stiff near the poisoned seed. In a 

 few days I cleared them out in this way. On several occasions 

 since, Voles have made an attack on Carnations, Lobelias, and 

 Arundos, but dandelion seed and strychnine solution has universally 

 done for them. Whether this remedy might be successful in coping 

 with the Vole pest, I am not prepared to say. If a seed could be 

 found which the Voles would eat freely and which could be had in 

 sufficient quantity, something might be done by placing poisoned 

 seed, well protected from other animals, in spots at some distance 

 apart in vole-infested areas. Dandelion heads with seed are easily 

 enough got in summer in most districts. Plantain seed might be 

 tried, and if the Voles ate it, might be got in quantity. Whin, broom, 

 thistle, or other wild seeds might be experimented with ; and if once 

 a suitable medium was found, poisoned seeds might have a tangible 

 effect in coping with the Vole plague. — D. Melville, Dunrobin 

 Castle Gardens. 



The Ring Ouzel {Turdus torquatus) in Winter. — To-day (ioth 

 December) I have been handed a specimen of this bird shot in 

 the early morning in an orchard in the outskirts of Maxwelltown. 

 It had been shot in mistake for a blackbird, as the gardener who 

 killed it was engaged in thinning down these sable gentry in view 

 of his future crops. The bird is a male, and apparently a bird of 

 the year, and is in rather poor condition, a result probably of the 

 hardships of the exceptionally severe weather of the past fortnight. 

 The bird had been seen at intervals about the same place since 

 about the time the currants were ripe, but was very shy. The 

 climate of lower Galloway is usually so mild and moist in autumn 

 and early winter that certain species of summer migrants prolong 

 their stay with us for weeks after they have left the rest of Scotland. 

 In the case of birds that can live almost wholly upon berries, there 

 is no reason why in seasons such as this, when various wild fruits 

 are so abundant, they should not remain the winter through. I 

 have notes of a well -authenticated instance where a Ring Ouzel 

 did live at a place in the Stewartry during the whole winter of 

 1 880-8 1 ; and that winter was by no means one of our usual mild 

 ones. That bird was seen until so late as the middle of March, 



